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This post is updated from December, 2010.

Social media presents a unique opportunity for anyone to develop a personal or business reputation to build their careers, boost sales and increase relationships. The key is to leverage the tools of the Social Media to effectively build your online reputation. You need to understand what your goals and intentions are in order to be successful.

Here are 10 ways you can be successful in this journey, so you can achieve your short and long term goals rather than waste time:

1. Be aware.Continually listen to conversations happening across the Web related to your career or business and learn from the content you read, listen to, or view online. Social media success depends as much on listening as it does on publishing.

2. Be focused.Define your niche and focus the majority of your social media participation on conversations and content related to that area of focus. A focused brand is more powerful than a broad brand. Always lead with your strengths on the social media and be consistent in your content and conversations in order to successfully build your online reputation.

3. Be authentic.Your social media participation is useless if your content and conversations read like corporate rhetoric or a promotional brochure. Instead, be real and be human. Imagine you’re speaking with your audience in person rather than online and adjust your content and tone to match your target audience’s needs and expectations for you based on your brand promise. This is where videos can be a great tool for people to really know who you are.

4. Be trustworthy.Honesty is an essential part of building your online reputation using the tools of the social media. Transparency isn’t just a buzz word, it’s a strategic imperative, which should apply to your social media participation as well as all other aspects of your career or business.

5. Be meaningful.The content you publish on social media must be useful and meaningful to your target audience or there is no reason for them to read it or start a dialogue with you about it. Furthermore, if your content doesn’t add value to your audience’s lives, they won’t talk about it and share it with their own audiences.

6. Be “non-self-promotional.”No one will want to read your content or interact with you on the social media if your content and conversations read like a marketing pitch. Follow the 90-10 rule of marketing and spend 90% or more of your time in social media activities that are not self-promotional and only 10% or less on activities that are self-promotional. When you do want to directly try to get more exposure to build your online reputation, you can do so without annoying other people.

7. Be accessible and responsive.An important part of building your online reputation via social media participation is understanding that it’s not all about you. Instead, you need to spend a great deal of time acknowledging other people on the social media in order to build a relationship with them. In other words, they need to understand that you care about them, too. You need to respond to questions, comments on your blog, tweets, and so on.

8. Be reciprocating.You can’t expect people to reach out to you and share your content on the social media and not return the favor. If someone engages with you on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or another social media destination, then you can’t ignore that person — just as you wouldn’t ignore someone in a face-to-face situation. For example, you also need to leave comments on other people’s blogs, share their content on Twitter and Facebook, and more. You can’t operate in a silo on the social media and expect to be successful.

9. Be uncontrolling.The thought of giving up control and letting your content, conversations and name spread across the Web can be frightening. However, without the sharing of content and interactive dialogue that happens on social media, your online reputation cannot develop. You have to be willing to give up control and let people share and talk about you and your content in order for your online reputation to grow. Don’t worry about negative buzz about you, your brand, or your business. There is always a way to react to negativity on the social media.

10. Be involved.Don’t spend all of your time in one place. While quality is more important than quantity when it comes to building an authentic reputation online, you do need to spread your wings and be social. Focus on other avenues such as a blog, YouTube, Google Buzz, Backlinks, and much more. You need to use all aspects of Internet Marketing in order to see return.

10 ways to build your online reputation: 10 ways you can be successful in this journey, so you can achieve your short and long term goals rather than waste time.

This is updated from a post on Oct 26, 2010.

One of the most important parts of being active in the social media world is taking responsibility for your Facebook, Twitter, and any other internet marketing outlets you have. When we put our posts out and we like other peoples posts that is a good start to taking responsibility. When we send out Newsletters or email marketing campaigns we want other people to read them right?

Well it is a two sided road; I mean we all have to put in our efforts to read other peoples stuff as well. My tip for that is picking your inner circle of people and people you have made a power partner and start by reading their newsletters and/or emails. The same thing goes with our social media posts. We want people reading our post, tweets, events, questions etc. also emailing us wanting to work with us or learn more about what we do. We have to do that with others. The one thing I always say about social media is it brings people, communities, and companies together all over the world.

So how do we do that? It is easy . . . we put together a weekly schedule and then we implement it into our routine just like checking emails, and making calls.

Monday- Using www.Hootsuite.com schedule your posts to go out onto your Facebook personal page, Facebook business page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Ping.fm. Using my post before this one to help first create your strategy so you know what you need to post on your social media profiles and when. (Schedule an hour and a half to start)

Tuesday- Login to Facebook and add 10 people into your business list, research these people. Find people that have common interest or maybe looking for your services and put them into the business list you created. Then get onto Twitter or Twellow and search for your Keywords or location. You can search for people using keywords or type in keywords people would use to find YOU and add 50 people. (Schedule about 45 min to start, once you get the hang of it you can probably get it done in 30 min)

Wednesday– Spend some time on LinkedIn checking emails and finding people you may know and ask them to connect with you. (Schedule 45 min)

Thursday- Login to Facebook and add 10 people into your business list, research these people. Find people that have common interest or maybe looking for your services and put them into the business list you created. Then get onto Twitter or Twellow and search for your Keywords or location. You can search for people using keywords or type in keywords people would use to find YOU and add 50 people. (Schedule about 45 min to start, once you get the hang of it you can probably get it done in 30 min)

Friday – Repeat what you have done Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We are going to add another step into today, Once you are done adding people on Facebook and Twitter you want to go back to Facebook and go to your page, under your logo you will find a tab that says “Suggest to Friends” Click on that and then click the drop down tab to your list you made once that list pulls up on the top right hand side it will say “Select All” hit that and then send invitations. What this is doing is asking all the people you have been adding as friends to become a fan of your page!

Now this is what I do and share with people you are more than welcome to move it around however it works for you. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions of things that have helped you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Putting together a weekly social media schedule: ne of the most important parts of being active in the social media world is taking responsibility for your Facebook, Twitter, and any other internet marketing outlets you have. When we put our posts out and we like other peoples posts that is a good start to taking responsibility. When we send out Newsletters or email marketing campaigns we want other people to read them right?

Creative Ways to Repurpose Content into Something New

Many of you have probably spent a lot of time creating those high quality blog posts. Despite the effort, most of your blog posts are aging like milk, not wine. Now, no one is interested in them because it has been years since you published them. The good news is that you can make your old content valuable and relevant through the process of re-purposing. The key is to spice up each piece of content and making it a bit different than the last.

Repurposing content can be beneficial for your business. It’s a second chance at content promotion. People who weren’t able to read your post will have a chance to read about it. It also ensures that great content is never forgotten. Ultimately, reformatting your content helps you reach a new audience.

In this blog post, we have listed 3 different ways to repurpose old content. Read on and we’ll breathe new life into your existing content.

Write an ebook

One of the best ways to repurpose old content is by turning it into an ebook. While writing an ebook requires a great deal of effort, they are often considered as high-value pieces. There are dozens of tools that can help you design and publish your ebook. Papyrus, for instance, can help you create a beautiful cover page within a few minutes.

You can either distribute it on the Amazon Kindle Store or as a free giveaway for those who would subscribe to your newsletters.

Create a video  

Online videos continue to grow in popularity with web users. A lot of people prefer watching a one-minute video than to read a 1,000 world blog post. Contents that you have previously published to your site can be a great jumping off point for a larger discussion. This allows you to open up a whole new way to connect with others, especially for your audience who prefers content they don’t have to read. You can post your videos on Youtube or Vimeo for maximum exposure.

Create an infographic

People love visual content. You can repurpose your content as an infographic and then share it on social media. Take boring information like statistics or raw data and turn it into an infographic. This is effective because it provides a fun and creative way to present complex information quickly and clearly.

BIMS_12.6_14In the hopes of being successful in the world of online marketing, companies and organizations utilize different strategies. Video marketing is one of them.

Today, online videos are considered to be one of the most popular forms of advertising. In fact, a lot of businesses are using online videos as a part of their promotional strategies in order to stay ahead of the competition and keep up with the fast paced trend.

Still not convinced? Here are 4 reasons why you should advertise with videos online.

People love videos

People are getting more into viewing and sharing videos via Youtube, Facebook and other social networking sites. They just can’t look away.

Everybody is watching videos. Youtube alone has more than 4 million views per day. That said, you need to make promos, ads or video blogs, whatever format best reaches your target audience.

Feature your product’s functionality

Videos are an effective form of advertising as you can vividly show your audience, not just how your product looks like, but also how it performs.

Through this format, you can easily instruct and educate your current and potential customers about your products or services.

Stay ahead of the competition

Most people don’t have time or are too lazy to go through lengthy articles. They would rather spend a couple of minutes watching a video just to get the answers they need.

Users like to see something new and different, and videos can help you deliver. If you wish to stand out from your competitors, you need to create curiosity and offer information in a different way.

Capture interest of users

Videos are a great story-teller. By creating an engaging and compelling video, you can get people to cry, laugh, get mad or excited. This enhances user experience, making them want to come back for more.

 

 

According to a survey done by comScore Inc.,a global digital marketing service, the average Internet user watches about 185 videos each month. This includes advertising videos, personal videos, entertainment and news clips, etc.

Videos are a great way of engaging your audience in a way images and texts alone cannot. By adding video to your marketing campaign, you can give heart and personality to your business, while demonstrating your authenticity. Additionally, video is capable of providing as much as 50% conversion rate.

If you have no idea what type of video you should create, here are a few tips that will help you produce informative and entertaining clips that will also reveal the human side of your business.

Use customer testimonials

Nothing is more compelling than hearing your clients explain how your products or services helped solve their problems or improved their lives. Use this video to help prospective customers see themselves in the stories of these people.

Demonstrate your products or services

Instead of telling your current and potential customers how your business works, it would be best to show them. In other words, take your how-to guides to the next level and bring it to life. Mind you, educated buyers are more likely to make purchases.

Product reviews

The best products reviews usually come from trusted third-party reviewers. These types of videos can be found from various business portals to YouTube. Feel free to partner with reliable third parties and ask them to create products review for your business.

Corporate overview

These videos are mostly considered as the equivalent of company brochures.  Corporate overviews are usually intended to provide your audience a better idea about your company. These types of videos often include the executives, owners, key products and company history.

Visual stories

Visual stories usually include motion graphics, animations and illustrations with a voice-over. Videos of this kind are intended to explain complex products in a simpler and more compelling manner.

The Internet is filled with content and information. With the surplus of information, it may be difficult to entice people to read your contents or watch your videos, unless they’re actually in need of that information.

In this article, we’ll give you a few tips on how use video content on social media. Read on and get your message across your audience.

Introduce your company to the online community

Since you are on the Internet, it is best to introduce your company to the online community in a fun and creative manner. While fan engagement is encouraged, this does not mean that you have to post cute photos in order to gather likes. Instead, spend enough time to plan your video content and make sure to highlight your company’s strengths.

Capture the attention of your target audience

There is no denying that social media provides great benefits to business owners. However, most business owners find it difficult to capture the attention of their target audience and get them to view these videos.

Please bear in mind that the description that you include with the video actually makes a big difference. When writing a description, make sure to convey the message in a matter of 2-3 sentences.

Most importantly, be sure to grab the attention of the viewer, especially on the first 10-15 seconds. If you fail to do so, then there’s a greater possibility that they won’t finish watching your video and look for something more interesting. Your goal is to convey the message quickly and efficiently.

Video quality

You don’t need to create a video with the same quality as a cinematic trailer. However, please make sure that your video comes with a decent quality. A video taken from a shaky camcorder may not do well.

Meanwhile, an HD video with boring content may not attract as much viewers as well. So, we recommend a combination of both – creative and informative content matched with decent quality.

Length

A study which was conducted in 2011 revealed that viewers are more likely to watch videos ranging from 5 to 8 minutes. Longer videos, on the other hand, tend to turn people away.

 

Are your videos visually engaging? Utilize the power of video marketing by showing your audience what you are talking about. In other words, do not just tell them.  Play on the power of visuals. Video marketing can be incredibly powerful because it allows you to engage and persuade your audience directly. Make sure that your video illustrates the benefits of your product or service. Demonstrate how your product works and why your audience should care.

Does your video tell a story? Make sure your video has a beginning, middle, and an end.  In this sense, your video should be formatted like a good story. Good stories make us think and feel. But most importantly, they make us remember. The beginning of your video should establish who you are as a company and as a brand; this would be equivalent to establishing characters in a novel. The middle of your video should explain the product or service and give your audience a call to action; this is similar to the climax or problem in a novel. The end of your video must leave the audience with a reason to interact with your brand.

Is it clear who your video is targeting? Play to your audience. Think about where your video will be displayed. Your video should be targeted to the audience you want to communicate with and in turn, the audience that will be interested in watching video content. The tone of your video should align with the personality of your company. Give your audience a strong sense of who you are through your video.

Is your video interesting? Keep it simple and clear so that your audience views the entire video. You would not want to loose them half way through!


Video marketing can truly be a social way for businesses to engage with consumers. In today’s social networking environment, consumers want to share their opinions with the community and brands like never before, and video marketing caters perfectly to this desire.

The most important aspects of video marketing include conversations, content and the community. You want your video marketing campaign to distribute quality content that gets people excited and entices them to share what your brand has to offer with the community. In addition, video marketing can help brands deliver better customer service to their consumers. They can respond to consumer comments and questions, strengthening the consumer-brand relationships.

Social videos give consumers more power to be involved with the brand. They feel as if they have a meaningful relationship with the brand because they can share each other’s ideas and information.

YouTube is the second largest search engine. Consumers go to YouTube for information and entertainment; a perfect place for brands to show-off products and services. But, to find success with video marketing, you must rank well on YouTube. So make sure your video has a strong title, and a quality description of the video. Furthermore, you must make sure the video is generating comments, that people like the video and are sharing the video.

Social video marketing is all about marketing your brand’s message with an interesting video that will increase your consumer engagement. To do this, you need to get your video seen by the largest, targeted audience possible to get your message seen and heard.

Here are six video marketing issues to consider when creating videos with a social mentality:

1. Service
Your brand’s social videos should not come across like an advertisement. Ads are made to sell something, while social videos should be about building relationships. A consumer should feel no pressure, and if they do make a purchase, it should feel natural.

2. Dialogue
Don’t talk at people through your social videos; talk with them. Use your videos to interact with you consumers on an equal level so that no corporate barrier divides you from the consumer.

3. Engagement
Always remember that social video is not about how many views you get; it’s about the amount of enthusiasm and quality feedback you receive.

4. Participation
Don’t just make a video and put it on the Internet; you need to participate with your viewers and check out their own content as well.

5. Community
You must have an ongoing relationship with your consumers and always keep the community’s interest in mind when developing your videos.

6. Be Real
You should feature real people in your campaign videos. Share real stories and show the human side of your brand.

The Internet marketing environment changes substantially year-to-year. This past year, there were some subtle changes, and some, not so subtle. Regardless, marketers must know how to handle these changes! Here are some Dos, and a couple Don’ts, for Internet marketing this New Year:

DO Segment by Behavior: Be more effective by segmenting your emailing lists and only send out relevant messages to small, targeted consumers. It may be extra work, but the pay off will be worth it! You will be less likely to annoy some consumers, and you will increase conversions. Examine when people are opening your emails, clicking on certain links, attending webinars, visiting certain pages on your site, etc. By analyzing this behavior of your customers, you will also discover their interests. You will then be able to communicate with them on a personal level, in a relevant manner.

DO create more personal connections: Large companies (and small companies in an attempt to look more prominent) seem to communicate to their customers in a dry, corporate style. Therefore, personal connection is not as relevant in marketing communication as it should be. To change this, businesses must be more authentic! People want to connect with other people, not corporations. Always keep one customer in mind when working, so you always market your business with an intimate touch.

DO learn persuasive copywriting basics: In order to prevent the Internet from creating lazy marketers, you must understand that social media and Internet marketing do not see results simply from creating social media profiles. To really see an increase in sales, persuasive copywriting is necessary for converting traffic. So avoid being shy and hesitant when it comes to sales. Be active and involved to communicate your products and services efficiently!

DO incorporate more video: Video can be a marketing tool that creates personal connections fast. For many consumers, it’s also the preferred way to learn. Making quality video today is inexpensive and easier than ever! Create video campaigns specifically for a target market. Even if it’s shooting and editing a video with an iPhone, try it out-consumers will certainly get to see a personal quality to your company.

DO experiment with mobile for lead capture: Mobile marketing is a booming field now! Consider using QR codes if you do any sort of direct mail or outdoor advertising. With text messaging, give your consumers the option of requesting further information, offers or coupons if they text a keyword to a short code. If you don’t engage with consumers through their phones, you’ll likely miss out on potential business!

DO define your social strategy: Try not to focus on gaining a certain number of followers/friends. Social media marketing is meant to be a traffic source. Therefore, you should measure traffic, leads and customers from your social media efforts to keep you focused on the real goals of social media marketing. Measure customer loyalty with similar metrics to those of your customer loyalty efforts. However your company is using social media, be sure to measure the right metrics. Don’t ever think social media ROI is untrackable!

DON’T forget about direct mail: When used correctly with an online marketing campaign, direct mail can strengthen your message and build a better connection with consumers. Currently, many marketers are reducing the amount of direct mail they send out, due to its cost. So, this could be your chance to stand out! Only send direct mail to people who have responded to your marketing efforts so that you know you’re investing in the customers who are most likely to keep purchasing from you.

DON’T have a static website: Just because your business has a website does not mean you have an online presence. Building a website doesn’t automatically bring in customers! You must drive traffic to your site. A great cost-effective way to do this is to blog about topics that are important to your target market. Search engines love sites that actively add relevant content. This means that if you learn basic SEO concepts, you can turn your static site into a sales machine!

Keep these Dos and Don’ts in mind and your marketing efforts are sure to find success in 2012!

The usage of video on the web offers certain distinct, from SEO advantages right through to increased sales conversion, let’s look at the benefits of video content in detail.

1. Increasing your SEO

If you did not know . . . social media as a marketing tool is growing exponentially. No business can stick to age-old marketing methods. The major search engines now give a lot of value to video content. If your website or business has a video and an article about the same keyword, chances are that your video will rank higher every time.

Visitors are more likely to watch a quick 2 minute video demonstration of your services than they are to read a long wall of text. In addition, you can target several long-tail keywords with videos to scale your rankings even further.

2. Video Distribution

There are several video distribution sites that allow users to upload their videos to many websites at once. Tools such as TubeMogul, VideoWildfire and Hey!Spread allow you to add your videos to a lot of the popular video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others simultaneously. These websites usually offer optimized videos for their mobile platforms too, thus automatically expanding the reach of the uploader’s brand.

3. The Social Media Effect

Since popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to share interesting links, having your own video on the major sites drastically increases your chances of exposure. Also, people are more likely to share an interesting video they came across rather than an article.

4. Automatically Increase Traffic to Your Website

If you have been surfing the web long enough, inevitably you have visited a Web 2.0 property which features a video on the homepage. Having this kind of a setup increases the visitor retention on the page. People are more likely to be intrigued by the service and might stay around to find out more if they are presented with an entertaining video explaining the purpose of the website or the service.

5. Increase Sales by Having a Great 1st Impression

For example, assume the case of a website that reviews cameras and includes the webmaster’s affiliate links at the end of each review. Now for a physical product such as a camera, a video review can show things to the visitor that simply cannot be conveyed effectively through text. In these cases, a video is a far more effective tool to increase the chance of conversions, and subsequently helping the webmaster make money online.

6. More Success with Opt-in and Subscriber Lists for Video Based Feeds

People are used to getting walls of text and promotional offers in their inbox all day long. Not many marketers out there offer informational videos to their subscribers. Since most people are already signed up to one or more textual newsletters, a weekly video-based feed can be a nice change. Also, some concepts are better demonstrated over video.

7. Personalized Experience for Your Customers

You can guide your visitors to different sections of your website using videos making the whole experience similar to visiting an actual store. Videos put a face on the merchant and make the users more comfortable doing business with them.

8. Automation of Video Creation

Earlier, video production used to be a lengthy process involving half a dozen people and a lot of equipment. But nowadays, video production is seamless and in a lot of cases, completely automated. All in all, video marketing is highly beneficial for improving brand recognition and customer retention. Online businesses that haven’t jumped onto the video bandwagon already should look at it as a serious option for improving the quality of their websites.