Last month I spoke to the Triangle Area Freelancers on how to use social media to market yourself.  The group is primarily freelance writers and they had some excellent questions including:

• Should I get on Twitter?
• Where do I start with social media?
• Blogger or Wordpress, which is better and should I pay to host my site?

I have to keep reminding myself that there are still many people out there that are new to social media and interactive technology.  With the rapid pace of change it can be scary and hard to get started with confidence that you are heading in the right direction.  Even tough the mainstream media keeps blasting out stats like Facebook is the largest country on Earth, there is still a huge majority of people dipping their toe into the water.

Based on these questions and my presentation I thought it would be a good post to create the five starting points to marketing yourself on the web and creating an online presence.

1. Create a web presence that you own. Whether you decide to create a blog or just a simple site to direct online traffic to learn more about you and your craft, own your own site.  Many people use Blogger and Wordpress free hosting and even though this is a great, low-cost entry into creating a web presence there is a downside.  Google and other free hosting sites legally own your content according to the terms of the agreement.  Therefore find a reliable hosting provider that can host your domain and site.
2. Create a Twitter account even if you don’t want to post. There is valuable information on Twitter including many people asking for some to provide services that you may offer.  Even if you don’t want to chat on Twitter, create an account so that you own your name or brand name and you have the ability to listen.  Use search to create listening agents and investigate possible opportunities.
3. Create and manage your LinkedIn profile. Many business users are on LinkedIn and not Twitter.  They don’t use Facebook for business so LinkedIn is the main business social network.  Over the past year LinkedIn has really added interactive features and functionality that allows users to profile their work and cross-reference other sites.  Look for people asking questions that you have expertise in and answer them.  The interaction may lead to a job or lucrative project.
4. Understand the medium. After being a PR and marketing writer for the past 18 years, I Discovered that blogging is much different form of writing.  When I wrote for trade journals my article length was 1,500-3,000 words.  Blog posts tend to be 500-1,000 words.  Use Google to search for web sites and blogs in your subject matter and begin looking at them.  Find the ones you like and pattern your presence after theirs.  Add your personal flavor and opinion and let your site visitors appreciate what you bring to the conversation.
5. Define your goals. Determine what you want out of your web and social presence.  Do you want to capture leads? Do you want to increase awareness?  Are you looking for a business partner? Establish baselines and track your metrics from that point forward.  Be realistic and revisit your objectives every few months, revise and keep momentum going forward.

There are many other starting points and advice but I wanted to stick to the key points.  Many times we find ourselves consuming too much information and losing focus of building the foundation properly so that we can add to it later.  Thanks to Kristy Oberlander Stevenson and the Triangle Area Freelancers for inviting me to speak.

Last week the Triangle Social Media Club had two guest speakers, Karlie Justus (@karliej) and Jason Peck (@jasonpeck). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both the speakers and interacting with them on Twitter over the past several months. I was glad to see Karlie speak about the NC State Fair since I had been trying to catch up with her to find out how effective social media was in promoting the State Fair. I have written two blog posts about the NC State Fair and Deep Fried Tweetup in the past few weeks so was interested to see how the campaign went for the NC Department of Agriculture (NCDA) that manages the Fair.

The goals of the social media campaign were to reach new audiences as well as reach media in a new way. The campaign started in July of 2008 and ran for a full 16 months. The team began with a new web site design and created a blog that communicated interesting facts about the Fair as well as announcing entertainment acts and other announcements. Other social media sites that were created included Facebook group, MySpace page, Twitter account, Flickr photos and YouTube channel. Some of the more interesting stats were:

• 70,000 unique blog views with 27,000 unique visitors in October
• Facebook page had 5,000 friends, 420 fans and over 1,400 photos tagged
• Twitter account had over 2,331 followers with 1,828 updates and 422 direct messages. Many of the direct messages were from local media that supplemented the PR plan.
• YouTube channel hosted 37 videos and had 58,000 unique views with 55 subscribers.
• MySpace page had 928 friends with 8,000 blog views and 99,000 page views.

Other social media tactics included having a Deep Fried Ambassador contest among local bloggers, inviting bloggers to the press conference and hosting the Deep Fried Tweetup on the Thursday night of the Fair. The Tweetup attracted over 150 attendees and further extended the Deep Fried brand. One interesting note was that Thursday traffic spiked with 2000 unique visits to the blog and average of 60 tweets per hour. The event was also streamed and attracted 43 views.

Whew, that’s a whole blog post, but wait there’s more! Jason Peck had a tough act to follow but did a fantastic job speaking about branded communities. Jason’s company eWayDirect takes features of social networks and brings them into a single platform. The goal is to bring people together while having full control of the look and fell, content, ads and metrics. I have a dream and that is what eWayDirect offers…a single platform with control, basically a branded community.

• Protection: no random Facebook ads, your community is spared from junk and spam
• Exclusivity: you may not want everyone, just certain people that are your customers and prospects
• Research: polls, metrics and other tools to gather information from your community.
• Business metrics: the ability to determine revenue per member. Mmmm, ROI is that something everyone keeps talking about regarding social media?

• 4,500 new members
• 56,000 visits
• 5,000 unique visits, increase of 75%
• 9% of members opted to received the desktop notifications and reminders
• Average revenue per member increased 270% more than non-members

•  Have a purpose for your community, give people a reason to join
• Make people feel welcome, it's important
• Establish measurable goals ahead of time will drive you towards them during execution
• Make sure the community does not exist in a silo

I have been reading about Foursquare over the past few months on Twitter. Several people I follow in New York City had been raving about it so when Foursquare came to Raleigh I was excited to see what the hype was.

Users accumulate points and are ranked among their friends as well as in their geographic location. Each Sunday night the leaderboard resets and starts all over again. I have read that if you accumulate enough points and badges you can receive free stuff from local vendors, bars, and restaurants. I’m interested in how Foursquare goes about doing this in each of their markets.

So I checked in at my office just to test the iPhone app and see how this works. I quickly learned that my office is not listed in the Foursquare directory so I entered in the address details and got more points. I also found out that many of the places I visit were not listed in their directory requiring me to look up addresses using Brightkite (another location-based social network) and then entering the address into Foursquare.

Of course I’m a 42 year old married person with two small kids so I’m not sure how many check-ins I will have at the latest bar on Glenwood South or Fayetteville St. So I quickly realized that Foursquare would ask me to enter a lot of addresses since Target and the movie theatre may not be on the “hot” lists of places to go out to. Much less my kid’s soccer practices and games held at middle schools and churches.

Other features that Foursquare offers include tips from other users. For example you can see what other users recommend on a menu to a new restaurant. Other tips may include nice quiet spots in public places or the best bartender or wait staff to ask for. Users can also create "To Do" lists to keep track of their task but it's not a task list like you would find in Outlook. These to do's are more like "Go to the gym" or "have lunch with John."

I have to admit if I was a young twentysomething I would de digging Foursquare more. The fact that the network will alert you when friends check in is a neat feature to engage in social behavior. I wonder what my Foursquare would have looked like back in 1990. Would I have a “Local” badge for checking into The Five-O Club four nights a week? Would I have been the “Mayor” of The Comet? Note to Raleigh newbies: these are bars that are either no longer around or not-so-cool anymore with all the new entertainment venues.

I remember someone asking me in 1995 when I was building my first web site and describing how cool this new technology was, “Hey can you help me get on the interweb?” Sure I said, just take a left on the Internet superhighway and look for the exit that starts with http://www and you’ll be there! Of course this request was better than the person telling me how AOL was the entire Internet as well as this new web thing he had heard about.

If you are active on social media sites today you may have people ask you for help much in the same way people needed assassinate first getting on the Internet. Tech savvy and web geeks have no trouble getting on a nice clean interface like Facebook. But some people out there need the helping hand to guide them through the process cleanly the first time versus them stumbling through it and not being satisfied with the outcome.

You have to be judicious in your efforts to assist those needing your help. I remember when Windows 95 came out and I offered my assistance to help a co-worker if he needed it. Next thing I knew his wife was calling me at 10 p.m. on a Friday night upset and wanting to know if I would guarantee that Windows would install on her computer correctly. After listening to her vent for awhile I told her in a cordial way, “You want a guarantee call Bill Gates.”

I was not being mean to this person, I merely wanted to let them know that I am but a simple marketing geek and she needed a titan. When asked for assistance now, I tell people to be prepared. I will make time to assist you but do some basic pre-work so we can get rolling and get results in an hour or less.

For starters they need to have a personal email address to use. If they are interested in blogging, YouTube and other Google sites I suggest using Google Gmail for easier single sign on. If they have another account and they are comfortable with it that’s good to but they may not want their corporate email so they can filter and track messages coming from social networks. I find that it clutters up your work inbox and can easily distract you when working.

Other pre-work can include digging up their resume, bio or any other material written about them to use as a base for writing their online profile. If they are getting on LinkedIn tell them to list any awards they received or honors bestowed on their company when they worked there. A nice photo or headshot if they have one is essential for creating the profile as well. No headless icons please! Any additional content they may have such as videos, music, documents, etc. is good but may not be required to get started.

Now that your new pupil has done their homework, you can jump right in and get started building their profile, finding friends and contacts and being a part of their new online community. Do you have any tips when people ask you to help them get online and learn how to use Web 2.0 technology?

In the first marketing toolkit I discussed desktop publishing and the role it played in changing marketing strategy and processes. In this post I want to discuss what was the second major technology impact to marketing over the past 20 years, the creation of the World Wide Web and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

I was fortunate enough to be working on a Sun workstation in 1994 and was able to use Mosaic the first web browser. I was fascinated by the technology since it was a gateway to information, but more so in that I saw the web as the game changer in marketing. In the same way that the first PCs and desktop publishing gave us a greater level of control over communication, the web was going to be an even bigger leap.

At the same time that the web was being developed we also witnessed the evolution of database technology and its application towards customer data. CRM systems allow us to collect data about our customers in addition to managing and tracking our communication and interactions with them. Each customer touch point could be analyzed and trends identified to help marketing professionals determine the best method of communication and engagement to the customer.

Both of these technologies were perfectly suited to work with each other in today’s business environment. As a business culture we wanted some of the basic marketing and customer support functions to be more self-service. Marketing departments were able to get more valuable feedback as well as respond in a timelier manner. By integrating database information our web sites went from billboards to dynamic information resources.

The marketing geek in me embraced these technologies as they were eliminating some of the most painful and challenging aspects of my job. Now if there was a change in any part of the marketing message, I could do it easily and with fewer costs. Of course there would be an entire set of new business rules, best practices and technology challenges to follow.

For today’s marketing professionals the corporate web site has become the main focus of marketing communication. It’s the first place business people and consumers turn to for information, points of contact, contests, locations, store hours, warranty info, etc. These sites have powerful backend databases that allow us to search, sort and filter information in the form the receiver desires.