Category Archives: Social Media 101

Growing Your Twitter & Facebook Following

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I received a question on my Formspring account, which you can reach at www.formspring.me/erinblaskie, which asked, “What do you recommend people do to grow their Facebook and Twitter following?”

Growing your Twitter and Facebook following can feel like a daunting task. You start with a profile and an empty list of friends / fans and followers and you might feel as though you’re Twittering and Facebooking to dead air at first. Growing your following is not something that you can purchase or learn about in an e-book so let me save you a few dollars and talk about some natural ways to go about doing this.

Let’s first look at Twitter. When you create your Twitter account, you have the option to search for friends. If you’ve already created your account, you can still access this area by going to the account menu, in the new Twitter, and clicking on “Who to Follow.” From there, choose the “Find Friends” option.

Twitter allows you to check LinkedIn, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and MSN Messenger to see who you are connected to in those places. Once Twitter does a search of each location, it will show you a list of people you already know that are also using Twitter. I recommend checking these sites at least once per month because as your Gmail and LinkedIn contacts grow, you might find new people to follow.

Facebook has a very similar feature to Twitter. While logged into Facebook, click on “Account” and then on the left-hand side of the webpage, click on “Find Friends.” Here, you can search through Hotmail, Yahoo, Live Messenger, Gmail and other tools to find friends that you know that use Facebook. As with Twitter, make sure to check back at least once per month.

These first two options will allow you to naturally grow your following with people you know. This is a great option because people will be more inclined to follow, interact and engage with you when they already have a relationship with you. However, if you are looking to build a following based on a strategy you have, each site also has ways to locate people.

Twitter has many directory sites setup all over the Internet. WeFollow.com, Twellow.com, etc. are examples of these directories and they categorize Twitterers into searchable directories. They operate much like your Yellow Pages does but are setup for Twitter instead.

Facebook is a bit trickier but what you can do is look for groups and pages that are topic-based and then follow / friend some of the people who are active inside of that group.

Lastly, make sure that you have social media icons everywhere promoting your profiles on each site. Link to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and wherever else you have accounts setup to ensure that people can easily find you.

How to Use @Wetoku in Your Online Business

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I love online video.  In fact, I love any kind of video but when I get to see live, streaming video of my favorite Internet people, it just makes my heart feel good.  The unfortunate downside is that not everyone embraces video the way I (and others) do.  For the longest time, we had some really solid options for video.  For pre-recorded, uploaded video, you could use YouTube or Vimeo.  For live, streaming video, you could use Ustream or Justin.tv or Blog TV.  Now, we’ve got an awesome tool for co-hosted, live, streaming video… Wetoku.

I met one of the founders / creators / masterminds behind Wetoku at WordCamp Montreal.  After I was introduced to what they were doing, I was hooked.  I primarily used the service for my eThusiasm edited video podcasts but knew that eventually, I would have additional ways to tap into what they were doing.

Some of the things I mention below are things that not even I am doing yet but I figured it might be helpful for you to see what my plan is with Wetoku so that you can join in the fun!

  1. Produce a co-hosted live podcast with a colleague, a client or a friend. For this particular project, make it a regular occurrence.  Set a date and time every week, every two weeks or once a month and schedule it around certain topics.  Make it lively, interactive and fun!
  2. Invite guest speakers to come on to a timed segment that you can edit into a longer, more ‘produced’ video for your website. This could be something that is done off air without community involvement.  Interview people and edit those into longer videos that are all centered around a specific topic.
  3. Have your social media community interact with you and a colleague in a real-time conversation for fun – not recorded, just off the cuff sort of conversation. This will begin to create a voyeuristic look into your business, who you are and what you do.  Let people in, let them engage and interact.
  4. Host your own version of ‘Ask Erin Live’ but invite audience members to come live and ask you questions. This is a great idea as it moves you away from the “two experts on a panel” approach and into a very intimate setting where people get to have some face time with you.

As we begin to get more comfortable with video, people will be embracing this as a new way to connect and share information.  It will allow people to connect with you via an authentic experience rather than a static, written one and you won’t be doing the sharing alone.  There is a real collaborative spirit hitting up the business community and tapping into that early will definitely make you a trend setter.  Invite your colleagues and friends to join you in creating your next venture… It will be a lot more fun that way!

Choosing the Best Social Media Sites

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I received a question on my Formspring.me account which asked, “How do I decide which are the best social media sites to take part in?”

Choosing the social media sites that you take part in is much like choosing your favorite haunts around your local town. You have to visit them, see who’s there, check out the conversation happening there and see where you get the most interaction. Social media is about engagement and having really valuable conversations so you want to look for the locations where you can do that.

Sometimes, people attempt to join every social networking site and maintain profiles at each site. I encourage you to choose 1-3 sites that you will be mostly active at and for the rest of the sites, setup your profile and auto-feed status updates to them. Don’t spend time building a community at those other sites if you don’t plan on using them frequently.

For me, Twitter is my favorite social media tool. Following Twitter would be Facebook and following Facebook would be LinkedIn. Now, that being said, I don’t maintain an active presence on LinkedIn and I rarely engage and interact via Facebook. Both sites are updated frequently but I am not there paying attention to the conversation.

For all other sites that I am a part of – FriendFeed, Technorati, Digg, Delicious, etc. – I have sites setup and links to those sites but I do not maintain active profiles there.

So to summarize, register your accounts everywhere (as it’s just good business practice) but then see where you have the most fun and the most success. Once you’ve done that, setup auto-feeding into the other sites and focus on your favorite.

Are There Too Many Social Media Channels?

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The question: “Are there too many social media channels?” came in through my Formspring a few months ago and I answered it there but also thought it would be good to share on the blog since so many people struggle with social media overwhelm.  Here was my response:

I definitely think that there are a lot of social media channels out there.  If someone had sat down at a computer and got on the Internet for the first time and tried to assess what social media channels they should join, the entire process would feel overwhelming as there are so many options out there.

The beauty of social media though comes down to choice. We choose which social media channels we are a part of, we choose the level of ‘noise’ we create on these sites and we choose the type of engagement we want to have via the channels.  For some, it’s purely an opportunity to broadcast out marketing messages on behalf of their company, product or service whereas for others, it’s an opportunity to build relationships and make valid connections.

When people come to me and ask me about social media, I often tell people this: try them on, see what fits and then stick to a select few (maybe only one). This will allow you to cultivate your experience on one social media site versus trying to squeeze yourself into all of the possible communities.  You will get more out of your experience if you simply focus on the sites where you get the most enjoyment.

For me, that is Twitter but for other people it could be Facebook or Sprouter or Ning.  Whatever you find that works for you, stick with it.

RSS Feed Reader Solution – Google Reader & Feedly

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I’ve been looking for an RSS feed reader solution FOREVER…  Something that worked well, didn’t overwhelm me and showed me the latest news so that I could gain blog inspiration and keep tabs on what was happening in the social sphere.  It wasn’t until I was sitting at home one night, on the computer per usual, when I messaged my good friend Josh Schnell over at Macgasm.net to ask him: what RSS feed reader do you use?

His response was simply: Feedly with Google Reader.

So, following his lead, I setup my Google Reader account and my Feedly account.  Let me quickly take you through that in case it is new to you!

Step One: Setup Your Google Reader Account

To do this, go to http://www.google.com/reader/.  Here, you want to login with your existing Google account or setup a new Google account.  It’s a good idea to use the same login that you use for Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. if you do already use the services because it makes it a whole lot easier to remember!  Once you’ve logged in, you don’t need to do anything else inside of Google Reader.

Step Two: Go to www.feedly.com and Download the Extension for Safari

Now, this part is a little bit complex.  First, you need to make sure you are running at least Safari 5.0.  Then, you need to go to your Preferences -> Advanced tab and make sure that the “Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar” option is checked.

Once you’ve done that, click on the extension plug-in link (option #4) at http://blog.feedly.com/2010/06/10/feedly-for-safari-5/.  They have the steps outlined nicely here for you as well.

Your extension will install onto Safari and you will have to restart your browser.  Once the browser re-opens, you can navigate to http://www.feedly.com/home to pull up your feed center.

Step Three: Setup Feedly

Here is where the power of Feedly starts to form.  Using “pages”, you can setup mini-newspaper feeds of specific categories that you choose.  For my own reader, I’ve setup a few categories including: social media, marketing and business, clients and tech.  This will allow me to keep up-to-date with blogs in these specific categories.  To add a page, first click on “organize sources” and then click on “add a source.”  Both of these options appear at the very top of Feedly.

In the “add a source” box, you can put the URL of any blog or RSS feed that you wish to track.  Once it is added here, it will appear in the grouping of uncategorized sources.  To create a “category” or a “page”, drag and drop the source into the shaded box where it says “new page.”

Once you add a source, it will prompt you to add a name to this new page.  Go ahead and categorize your source.  Now you can click the little pen beside new sources (or existing sources inside of your account) and add them to specific categories / pages.  These new pages will appear on the right-hand side navigation.

The Beauty of Feedly

The reason that I love Feedly so far is that it creates a newspaper feel to my feeds.  Here is a screenshot of an aggregate of posts in the social media category I setup.

It also allows me to easily share content to many different platforms.

There are many, many more reasons why I am digging Feedly which I’ll explore in an upcoming blog post.  For now, I’ll leave you with the idea that you should get yourself setup this way if you aren’t already!

How Tungle Has Changed My Appointment Scheduling

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It’s no secret that I love geeky gadgety things and I love spending as little time possible doing things I don’t have to do.  So, when I stumbled across Tungle almost a year ago (or maybe it’s been over a year!) I fell in love instantly.

If you haven’t yet seen Tungle, it’s a socially slanted automated appointment scheduling system that integrates with your existing calendar.  For me, I use Google Calendar to schedule all of my appointments and I needed something that integrated flawlessly with Google Calendar.  I didn’t want to have to update the third party calendaring system with my availability but rather update it right within my own calendar.  I also did not want to spend time going back and forth with prospects.

Tungle changed everything for me.  First of all, it’s free which makes the program that much sweeter but second of all, the people behind Tungle just “get it”…  They understand what we want and they understand where we’re at.  The social connection inside of Tungle is fantastic.  Let me take you on a tour of it!

Here is the Tungle.me page – the most powerful part of Tungle.  This page allows you to setup a custom place for people to come and view your availability and schedule appointments with you.  If you want to view this in real-time, you can check out my live Tungle page at http://www.tungle.me/ErinBlaskie.

As you can see, people can view my real-time availability, connect with me via my social networks, view a photo of me so they know who they are booking the appointment with as well as have access to my contact information very easily.

Once people land here, they can drag and drop their own availability in the spaces available.  They can then request a meeting with me in those time blocks that they are also free in!  If the user is also a Tungle user, the service is even neater because it automatically pairs up the two calendars to show the user’s availability as well as mine in an overlay.

Now, when I want people to schedule a meeting, they can come here and do that and the times get sent to me in an e-mail request.  The e-mail request looks like this:

Once I confirm the time I want out of the times the user has chosen, an e-mail is auto-generated to them letting them know that the meeting is confirmed.

The entire process being this streamlined has saved me a TON of time in scheduling.  I would encourage everyone I know to sign up and get your Tungle pages setup!  If you want help, my team would be happy to assist you!  Just send us an e-mail and we’ll send you a quote!