Fresh Brew » Social Media

Editorial Calendars: Lesson Learned…

monique — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:09:05 +0000

When you started out blogging, did you start by journaling the daily thoughts and activities that were on your mind? I know I did. Blogging was an exciting new adventure. I blogged about everything: Things that struck me as heart-warming, peculiar, and funny. I chronicled lessons learned around starting a small business. I blogged whole-heartedly and with gusto!

Fast forward a few years… Blogging was recognized as a great method for improving SEO; allowing the average online user to quickly add new content to their websites. I helped clients set up self-hosted blogs and gave them tutorials to get the blogging. We’d chat over coffee about different ideas that would help differentiate their companies from the competition, via content marketing. Makes sense, right?

Fast forward again… Some of my clients have been blogging regularly for their businesses, others not so regularly (myself included how busy I am working on clients’ projects). After doing a few site reviews and analysis of the content, it became very clear to me that an editorial calendar truly is a blogger’s best friend. Lesson Learned. An editorial calendar allows site owners/editors to:

• Get a big picture view of the blog

• Allows for planning

• Avoid repetitive subject matter

• Improve content creation continuity

• Stay on track developing content

• Keep the content focused

• Give readers a reason to return to the site

• Open up advertising opportunities

Great benefits, right?

After fussing with the best approach to create an editorial calendar for a client, I decided on using an online calendar. It is simple: Block out the content on a calendar that you can share with the writing and editorial staff. No need to get too fancy, there is just a need to get organized. Try it. From personal experience, I can tell you it is well worth the time.

Lost Twitter Ettiquette: DOs

monique — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:55:23 +0000

In the prehistoric days of Twitter, tweets were not searchable by search engines like Google and Bing. The marketing potential of 140 character microblog postings had not been realized. Initially, Twitter was seen as a tool that allowed friends and family to keep up with each other, a new way to send text messages. There was much more conversation going on. Since its inception in 2006, Twitter has grown to over 200,000,000 users. At one time it seemed like there was an unspoken understanding of how to interact in Twitter. Now some of these “DOs and DON’Ts” seem to have been forgotten.

From training materials that I produced in 2009:

1.) Build relationships with others

2.) Share helpful hints and useful information

3.) Be authentic

4.) Support others by re-tweeting

5.) Thanks others who support you

6.) Step out and follow others

7.) Be concise

8.) Re-tweet things that are interesting

9.) Tweet regularly

10.) Have fun tweeting!

Read the Lost Twitter Ettiquette Don’ts

Happy Tweeting!

Monique
@MoeneekH

6.) Step out and follow others

7.) Be concise

8.) Re-tweet things that are interesting

9.) Tweet regularly

10.) Have fun tweeting!

Lost Twitter Ettiquette: DON’Ts

monique — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:59:31 +0000

You may have read the DOs of Twitter ettiquette in my previous post. To continue on the thought, here is a list of DON’Ts:

1.) Give TMI

2.) Whine

3.) Be one-sided, solely promoting yourself

4.) DM people with gimmicks for games, follower schemes, etc…

5.) Spread your thoughts out over multiple tweets (be concise, say it in 140 characters or less)

6.) Be rude

7.) Get sloppy about spelling and capitalization

8.) Be sporadic about tweeting

9.) Don’t take credit for others’ tweets!

10.) Forget that it is all about building relationships

Read the Lost Twitter Ettiquette DOs

Happy Tweeting!

Monique
@MoeneekH

Sharing More Than Your Status on Social Media

monique — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:34:25 +0000

Often when people think about social media they think about FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube, but there are many other venues for Web 2.0′s social software applications. For instance Slideshare, allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations, so that you can share your ideas and expertise with others. Isn’t this what social media is all about?

Here is an example of a PowerPoint presentation that I have uploaded from one my social media workshops. The content is intended for users new to social media, but are interested in finding out more and getting started.

Let’s Get Tweeting

View more presentations from screencaffeen.

Researching

monique — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:52:39 +0000

I’ve been involved in a research project based on web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise. I recently came across an interesting interactive tool by McKinsey Quarterly that gives an interactive comparison of trends.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Business_and_Web_20_An_interactive_feature_2431?pagenum=1#interactive

Facebook’s Controversies May Spur Opportunities For Start-Ups

monique — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:44:01 +0000

I’ve been following the various controversies surrounding Facebook lately. While Facebook is a giant with over 400 million users world wide, sometimes these controversies make way for smaller companies. This past weekend, I heard Leo Laporte’s show on XM radio. Leo was talking about KNOI’s Facebook page being disabled because of statements that they made about the privacy issue controversies that always seem to plague Facebook. Leo Laporte has deleted his Facebook page as a result of the controversy, and was actively promoting May 31st as Quit Facebook Day.

To his credit, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook had a timely response to the flap that was going on. According to Zuckerberg, “Facebook missed the mark”, and has vowed to make the controls stronger and easier to use. Will everybody get this message? Probably not. Will we see Facebook make more privacy policy changes that agitate their user base? I’m guessing that we will continue to see these type of blunders from Facebook. Will users forgive Facebook? Some will, some won’t.

Personally, I find Facebook to be an excellent tool for keeping in touch with friends and associates. Do the issues that are popping up bother me? Not too much. Not enough for me to quit using the tool. In light of the fact that some people may quit or may look for other tools to use, I believe that there will be opportunities for start-ups and companies that have a smaller market share to capture some of Facebook’s constituency. One such company is Diaspora, who is certainly taking advantage of the bad press that Facebook has received.

Diaspora’s software will be an open source project that allows users to customize it and host it on their own servers, revealing as much or as little information as they choose. The four young programmers that have been building Diaspora have a dream: To get Diaspora in the hands of every man, woman, and child at summer’s end. September 2010 will signify the release of the project in its first iteration, fully open-sourced under the AGPL.

As a proponent of open-source software, I will be checking out Diaspora’s software to see what it can do. I will also be paying careful attention to the privacy policies of social networks that I use. I’d like to add that companies come and go. I’ve worked for Fortune 500 companies in the tech sector that seemed like they would reach the stars, but due to management mistakes, complacency, and a host of other issues they eventually failed, being sold for pennies on the dollar. Although, when these companies fail, they often make room for new companies and a spurt of innovation, keeping the tech world interesting.

Monique

POST, A Simple Social Media Model

monique — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:48:06 +0000

Saw this acronym recently, which was developed by the Forrester Group, for developing your Social Media plan. POST

People: assess your customer’s social computing behaviors

Objectives: decide what you want to accomplish

Strategy: plan for how relationships with customers will change

Technology: decide what social technologies to use

Short, Sweet, Self-explanatory, and Simple.

Add This

monique — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:19:11 +0000

|‘ve been playing around with various tools that I thought looked interesting. One of them is AddThis.com It is a quick way to add a button that allows you to create a widget that connects to various feeds and social networks. The buttons are just added to a custom Widget within WordPress or as html code on your web pages.

Social Networking Explained

monique — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:57:53 +0000

Over the past year or so, you’ve probably heard the buzz that is going on about social media, but you may be asking, “Just what is social media?” You may have also heard of it referred to as social networking services or even more directly, social networking. I can sum it up for you in a few words… Building relationships, building community.

A little bit of history: The first Social Networking Site to appear back in 1997 was SixDegrees.com. Others began to develop a few here and a few there. From 2002 – 2006, Social Networking really started to take off. Sites that are now widely recognized such as Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube emerged, capturing the mindshare of millions of users around the world.

Built on proprietary software platforms, there was a significant investment in engineering and time to develop a social networking site. The landscape is once again changing. New social networks continue to appear, because of platforms like Ning and Elgg allow users to set up their own Social Networks for free.

Getting started with Social Networking: The dominant players of today’s Social Media scene are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace. Each has its own purpose and terminology. Pick a Social Network that fits your need and is interesting to you:

· Looking for a professional network of colleagues, then LinkedIn is the place to start.
·MySpace started out as a place for musicians to highlight their endeavors and has grown from there.
·Connect with current and long-lost friends on Facebook. Share photos, games, and special interests quickly and easily.
·Entrepreneurs and larger companies alike, recognize Twitter as a platform for promoting their businesses in 140 characters or less to potential customers.
·YouTube allows users to share and comment on videos that are uploaded to their servers. Amazing what you can find on YouTube. (For fun search for “Will It Blend?”)

When signing up for a social network, the first step is to create the user profile, This profile may ask for interests, preferences, and affiliations, which allows other users to decide if they would like to connect with you. Some sites use the profile to make suggestions to help grow your network. Profiles can be updated and edited over time.

Just a word of caution: Anything that you put on The Internet has the potential to spread and stay out there for a very long time. Think about what information you want to keep private and how you want to present yourself publically. You may have friendly conversations online, but not everyone that you share typed words with is truly your friend. Use good judgment. Don’t give out addresses, ages, and personal information to strangers.

Enjoy the Social Sites, they are a great place to share thoughts, gain insights, and promote businesses. And remember, you get out what you put in. Nurture the relationships and watch your online community grow.

What is SMO?

monique — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:59:17 +0000

SMO stands for Social Media Optimization. In a nutshell, it is leveraging social media tools to drive publicity and bring visitors to your site.
The beauty of SMO is:

Most of the tools are free
It is fast
The potential to reach many people is huge
It allows you to build business relationships easily with like-minded people

There are many tools that you can use as part of your SMO strategy. I find that many people think of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, but there are many other tools, too.

Also think about YouTube, Squidoo, PRWeb, Flicker and other photo sharing sites, OpenZine and other eZines, forums, Yahoo! answers, link exchanges, and blogs. Also, don’t forget to register your blogs and web hosting with various search engines to attention. There are many blog search engines available now. The better known ones include: Digg, Technorati, Blogsearch and IceRocket.

To be effective, take time to develop your SMO strategy. Screen Caffeen specializes in eStrategy development as well as web design and eMarketing services. Don’t hesitate to contact Monique for assistance. 650-740-1491