Status Updates in social media can be confusing if you think as a professional that you have to be extremely personal with your updates.

“You don’t have to tell everyone about what pizza you are eating to grow your business”

Here are four tips to help get the most of your status updates that will drive results for your business.

1.       1.  Be authentic: You don’t have to tell everyone about what pizza you are eating, but you do need to be human. 

2.      2.  Use your current business questions or qualifiers to engage.  For example some of your typical qualifying questions can be posted.  Often times you will see people respond, which then can turn into a warm lead.

3.       3.  Drive people to landing pages or website pages with calls to actions in your status updates.

4.       4.  When providing URL’s in your updates use URL shortner’s such as bit.ly so you can both shrink the URL (saves character space) and keep track of your click through results from specific status updates.

There are countless tips available on how to perfect status updates for your business.  My goal today was to help businesses & professionals beginning to get some initial results. So what have you found helpful in your status updates?

As a business professional, so much information is available on using Social Platforms to generate business success. With so much noise, I wanted to take the time to provide the business world with three key categories of resources. They are key social media advisors who come not only highly recommended, but have the trackable experience as well. Next, I will share key tools that can help streamline your processes’ to better utilize your time invested. Finally, I will share key educational pieces you may want to take advantage of, before you review these resources take a look at this video.

Advisors
Nathan Kievman CEO of DemingHill, A Leading Social Media Firm
Chris Brogan Considered one of the foremost thought leaders in Social Media and well sought after advisor.
Mari Smith Considered to be the Facebook Queen
Seth Godin Considered to be a foremost business thought leader

Tools
Ping.fm: For Status Updates this tool will save you countless hours of time.
Hummingbird : Growing a targeted following on Twitter is tough enough.  This tool does it on automation.
Google Alerts : Listen to your audience. Without knowing what your target market or competitors are doing online how can you expect to get a creative edge in your marketing process? You must use Google Alerts to keep an ear to the masses.

Education Material
Trust Agents

Twitter Power 

Linked Into Marketing

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LinkedIn Power Users Webinar Every Thursday 4pm & 7pm EST, can’t make it go ahead and register for the playback.  Grabl your spot : http://bit.ly/3wzq9Q

Are you on multiple Social Networks for your business? Are you looking to bring continuity and one seem-less process to your status updates? Many services offer you the capability to send one status update that will update multiple social platforms at once. Many of them fall short of truly encompassing the majority of social networks online today. Except for one, that is Ping.fm, As a business professional myself this tool is a great resource to communicate one consistent message in just one full swoop.

Ping.fm should really be called “Status Updates Made Easy” for Social Networking. You can do status updates from Email, Chat, SMS, Blackberry, Android, WEB, Windows, OSX and much more soon. This is why Ping.fm is extremely easy to use and access –just send an update and it can touch on 50 social networks including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, WordPress, TypePad, Yammer, Status.net and many more. Ping.fm is compatible with every single Internet device in the world, which why it has become so successful among thousands of users.

Setting up your Ping.fm updates is really simple, first create an account then login and this screen will come up. On the lower left you see “add networks” click here to select which networks you want to add.

Then the list of networks comes up as seen below and you simple click on which ones you want to add and follow the directions to add. Usually it’s as simple as putting your username and password in for the account.

Recently Seesmic acquired Ping.fm, I would really call it a partnership as well since all the players at ping are working with seesmic. I am sure we can expect even more seem-less integration in the future.

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Be sure to grab our:

Fast Start Guide to LinkedIn
Fast Start Guide to Twitter
Register for our next LinkedIn Power Users Webinar with Playback
Five LinkedIn Power User Strategies

After several conference calls today discussing the value of Social Media and platforms such as Linkedin. My business associates asked me to give them a few measurable takeaways that have happened for me recently.

These 3 (three) examples actually cover Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook.

First, using Linkedin I wanted to drive event participation and schedule meetings for an upcoming tradeshow I was attending. So I posted the tradeshow event using the Linkedin Event’s application and then posted a link to the event in groups that it would be relevant too along with asking the group owners to feature the post. Through this simple step, I received multiple people acknowledging their attendance to the event. So what I did next was what any smart salesperson would do, I scheduled times to meet with those who seemed to be a good prospective customer.

Second, I used Twitter to post some of my travel schedule and events/ tradeshows I would be attending and also received responses (direct messages or DM’s) back of those who would also be attending. So again, I did what any smart salesperson in my position would do. I scheduled times to meet with those who seemed to be a good prospective customer. I also recently used twitter to contact a Fortune 100 company that got me several appointments and is resulting in several million dollars in business this year alone.

As you can now see I used Facebook to do the same thing in posting my schedule, events, etc…

Third, I use the advanced search on Linkedin all the time to find targeted prospects for my company. Through this I have sent inmail and request to meet yielding ongoing business.

If you would like to learn more first hand tips on how to use Linkedin and other Social Media platforms you can start by registering on the right to receive my “no cost” Fast Start Guide to Linkedin Success.

In addition let me share with you about two complimentary webinars.
1. Linkedin Power User Strategies Webinar This Thursday at 4pm EST w/ live Q & Following. Register Here

2. Facebook & Twitter Power User Strategies Webinar “Instant Access”

~Randy

Growing a targeted following on twitter.

So you want to grow a targeted following on twitter? You already understand the power of twitter and have seen the testimonials, articles, and companies raving about the success by using it. Now you want to get going before the ship sails (or sales ; ) . Here is the great news, it’s not too late.

In order to begin growing a targeted following the first question to ask is, who do you want to target? Once you know this then you can begin to build a game plan. I will use an example to explain how to begin this process. Let’s say you want to grow a following of “green” minded individuals (energy minded). You will first log into your twitter account. Once logged in precede to the upper right and click on find people. In the search bar you would type green which would return users that are associated with the term green. You can then go through and identify profiles that are specific to your target. Once identified you can click on their followers and choose to follow them one by one. While this is not entirely target specific it is as close as you will get with the twitter platform. Generally you will see that 50% of those you choose to follow with follow you back. If you are just getting started with twitter you do not want to follow 1,000 people out of the gate as twitter will suspend your account for aggressive following. You will need to take your time and build that up. After 48 hours I then go in and un-follow those who have not in turned followed me. An additional tip in this method, would be that the first few pages of people in the profile you are selecting to follow are ranked as the most active of the followers in the group. So you can increase your follow percentage back by selecting to only follow the first few pages who are the most active.

In addition you can participate in other social media platforms such as Linkedin and Facebook in target specific groups within these avenues, promoting your twitter account for others to follow. This too will result in a targeted following. For example staying with the “green” theme, you can participate in the “Green Group” on Linkedin through discussions and always leave a signature with each post that encourages others to follow you. Just be sure to provide significant content with the discussion so you are not considered to be an abuser of the discussion group.

Here is a free source at topfollowed.com that will grow your followings free with no hidden agenda.

In addition here is a resource to grow a targeted following that has been very effective for me and saves me a lot of time. TWITTER HUMMINGBIRD

Just getting started with twitter? I have written a quick tutorial to help, twitter tutorial 101

Happy Tweeting,

~Randy
@randyschrum
are you following my tweets yet?

Join the twitter discussion group on Linkedin 

So what is Social Media & Online Networking and how can it affect me? I realize talking about this subject many are looking into what “Social Media” even is, some have started working with it, and others could be considered fairly well versed. Right about now I am thinking of a very funny clip that probably is taking place with some who are here to read and learn…you can watch it here or just continue…

The “Goal” of this article is to help people in whatever area they may be.

So lets give “Social Media & Networking” a definition even though its truly an organic evolving idea.

“Social Media & Networking is the online/ digital collaboration for people to share, connect, imagine, facilitate, influence, and even create, both professionally and personally online.”

 Another Definition is…

“The new WEB 2.0″ this is you and us online interacting together!

So now we have defined it, what makes it so attractive? I believe because it is “us” the new WEB 2.0 defining it. People are bombarded with massive amounts of information on a daily basis and have functioned in an environment of news, marketing, media, advertising, and information that has left people saying we have had enough.

Social Media platforms have awaken in the middle of this massive bombardment of information. Such platforms such as myspace, facebook, twitter, linkedin, ecademy, xing, plaxo, blogger, wordpress, youtube, and many more. While we still see the marketing, advertising, news, etc… We do so more at “our” terms. Making things more “target” specific for us the consumer. This leaves the business strategist to refine & rethink the ways to reach the new WEB 2.0 generation. The key element of understanding the strategy is that it will be determined & policied by “us” the consumer. Others would argue that current media is determined and policied by us, in part that it is true as regular media avenues are declining in profit or aren’t profitable at all. So yes we have policied it and delivered our verdict. That verdict is that “you have not listened” to us. So its being taken over by us, for us. This is not to be intended a political statement in no way, however it is a culture shift.

So just how much steam has Social Media & Online Networking have? You can read that many companies are willing to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars for people on twitter who have large followings to mention their product on a daily basis. Facebook is growing by 500,000 members a day! Every Linkedin connection you have is currently considered to be worth real dollars according to an independent research done by forrester. News of the plane hitting the Hudson was first broke on twitter! The power of social media is here to stay we all must learn to adapt, rethink, and re-value our ideas.

So how do you begin if your new? I would recommend identify 2 or 3 social media platforms to work with and choose to master one of them.  The key tip I can give you is that “Your Profile is Your Resume” this tip crosses the social media platforms.  Additionally I would recommend that one of the platforms be linkedin as an adult this site is a great resource to advance & add resources to your career.  You can learn more on how to be successful on Linkedin at my blog successwithlinkedin.com The other platforms to give strong consideration currently are twitter and facebook.  I could name another 10 to 15 more, but these few I mentioned can get a beginner started.

One thing in common with most of these social media platforms is connections or followers. See my link at the top about putting your connection building on a hybrid.

Lastly I suggest watching, Lewis Howes short presentation on 8 Social Media
tips. You can view those here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiD872mh334&feature=player_embedded]

Be sure to check back often to The Aggressive Networker as we will try to provide you cutting edge information on Professional Networking 2.0

Randy Schrum
connect with me on any social platform@ linkwithrandy@yahoo.com

Twitter tutorial, step by step:
First watch this video then follow the following steps.

1. Click in the lower left where it says “Get started”
2. Create an account
3. Choose people to follow
4. Put your contacts into Twitter via. Hotmail , Gmail , CSV files, or search by name in the upper right corner.
5. Follow my Tweets They Are Sweet www.twitter.com/randyschrum
6. Begin Following Tweets, you can even set in your profile/ settings to receive updates once someone tweets or begins to follow.
7. You will see a lot of people spamming, but you will also be able to delete the ones who are.
8. Post tweets at least a couple times a week or a few times a day.
9. Invite people to follow you…If your a business professional or corporate represenative looking to leverage twitter then click here to learn more
Still need help? Refer to www.twitterholic.com  The first step is admitting…also check out this slide show.