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Social networking is serious business! This is social networking for the 21st century, one in which every business owner should get on board with. As entrepreneurs, it is essential that you continually generate new ideas in order to maximize the profit-making potential of your venture.

Social media is a great way to leverage your products or services. It is an easy and inexpensive way to connect to people around the world and an opportunity to make friends with people who have similar interests, find solutions to problems they might have by collaborating with others, as well as attract clients that might need your products or services.  Be more strategic.

According to a recent survey on online social networking by the Institute for Corporate Productivity:

• 65% of business professionals use some form of personal or professional social network
• 47% use social networks to connect with potential clients and market their skills
• 55% use social networks to share best practices with colleagues

So, ready to jump on the Social Media Bandwagon?  Here are 4 Super Duper Tips for Social Media Success:

Super Duper Tip 1:  Create a Strategy

Social media is comprised of many different platforms. Creating and implementing a marketing strategy for using social media is extremely important.  This will alleviate a lot of time wasted and help you to focus on the most effective way to use it and decide which social networks best suit your business needs.  Three things to consider in your plan:

• Primary goal: decide on the purpose and goals for establishing social media
• Content: decide on the message you want to convey to your target audience.  It is important that your content is in line with your company’s mission and values.
• Measure Your Progress: Set a timeline for the appropriate time to measure your success.  This will allow you to make adjustments to your strategy.

Super Duper Tip 2:  Know your audience

Often, I consult with clients who after talking to them, I find that they have not considered who their customers are.  Most of them want to sell their products or services to any and everybody who will buy from them. I explain to them that they cannot be everything to everybody, it just won’t work!  Imagine having to create a marketing campaign to attract a dozen or so industries. You would have to because one shoe does not fit all!

While using social media can allow you to reach millions of people, you want to make sure you are reaching the appropriate audience.  Though Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are the most popular at this time, make sure you research other social sites that can give you the greatest access to your audience.

By knowing your audience, will dramatically increase your effectiveness!  This is important both online and offline.  Again, know your audience!

Super Duper Tip 3:  Protect Your Image or Die!

The image your business portrays sends an important message to your clients.  It is easy to get too comfortable and let down your guard when using various social networks.  It is important to treat people with the same respect online as you do offline.  Truth is information travels like wild fire!  If you have a dissatisfied customer; in the matter of seconds, they can post negative information about your business.

For example, if I was dissatisfied with the way I was treated as a consumer from a business, I could post my complaint to my 1900 twitter followers or to my 1200 fans Facebook.  Imagine the impact if a percentage of my followers also shared that post with people in their network?  A web savvy customer can literally shred your company to pieces as well as destroy your credibility and reputation with a single post.  Protect your reputation.  Remember, image is everything!

Super Duper Tip 4:  Build Lasting Relationships

If you put up your profile to never update or visit the social media site again, what are potential clients and business partners to think?  In order to blossom and make an impact in the communities that you join, you must network. Networking is a reciprocal process based on the exchange of ideas, contacts, advice and referrals. By networking, you are building professional relationships and generating new business.

In closing, more and more local small businesses and non-profit organizations are climbing aboard the social media bandwagon to market themselves for free. It just makes good business sense to learn how to leverage social media to build communities around brands and then leverage them into revenue.

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4 Super Duper Tips For Social Media Success is a post from She Takes on the World

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Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, the constant availability of learning opportunities and more ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were not available just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting our good name. Here are five easy ways to do just that:

1) Set Goals

I am sure you have done this already, but just in case, first do a search on Google for your name in quotation marks. It is important to see what comes up on the first page. The first page of a google search result is precious real-estate. Then set up a simple spreadsheet so you can keep track of your digital footprint. Do a little research and spend some time collecting numbers. How many Facebook followers do you have? What kind of traffic do you get on your site? Once you have the numbers you can then decide on your goals.

Are you interested in growing the numbers of links/connections/followers or do you want more one-on-one engagement? Or are you more interested in getting retweets on Twitter (which, as Guy Kawasaki said recently is “now the sincerest form of flattery”). Once the goals are in place, track the results in the spreadsheet and adjust as needed.

2) Learn

To accomplish any of these goals, you are going to need to learn. The new world of communication is moving quickly, which naturally lends itself to a couple of advantages. First, there is a lot of room for experimentation, so use your talents and skills to communicate in your own unique way. Second, this experimentation has led to collaboration, and smart people are sharing information all the time. Make sure you make time every day for “learning.” Look over sites and information to keep up with the developments in social media. Currently I am taking part in an online conference, called Social Media Success Summit 2010 and am learning a lot. And among the many sites I visit, one of my daily stops is: PR Daily News: Public Relations news and marketing in the age of social media.

3) Develop Content

To communicate 24/7, which is now the expectation and the norm, you need to develop different types of content. Blogging is a great way to share your knowledge and collaborate with others. However, blogging can be a big undertaking. Blogging expert Denise Wakeman recommends that you blog 3 times a week. If that is a daunting task for you, try guest blogging on an established site or blog in your industry. Another way some of my clients have developed content is through books, ebooks, whitepapers, audio recordings, slide presentations and videos.

4) Build Relationships

Building and maintaining relationships has never been easier. Those of us in sales and marketing have always known the value of relationship building, but now everyone needs to make it a priority. Make sure you have profiles on LinkedIn, and Facebook. Twitter is a fantastic source of information, and an excellent place to learn. People on Twitter are eager and happy to help each other. To get tips on effective communication on these sites, I look to Cindy Ratzlaff who has a daily video tip along with regular blog posts on her site. Social media is an excellent way to build relationships, but don’t forget the value of face to face meetings, phone calls, hand written notes, and emails. It’s good to focus on important clients and influencers, but leave room for the “accidental” connections. Social media networking can be serendipitous, you never know which person may lead you to a new connection or client.

5) Monitor

Social media alerts (Google or Social Mention) are a great way to monitor your name and/or industry. If something important happens in your industry you’ll know about it and can comment. If someone says something positive, a thank you goes a long way. If there is negative chatter starting up around your name or company, alerts keep you on top of it and you can jump in and take care of things quickly. I also use Addictomatic which is a great site for big picture monitoring.

There are many tools and resources now that can help us to become better communicators and better guardians of our reputations. I know it is a big undertaking, but the question to ask yourself is: If you are not investing in yourself, why should anyone else?

About the Author:

Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, a web publicity and social media firm specializing in creating awareness for books and authors. For web publicity and social media news, follow Fauzia on a new Twitter: @WebSnapshot

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I’ve already covered how to Ping out tweets or FB status updates simultaneously and how to keep track of your LinkedIn network connections with a CRM. This is an article for the business women who STILL resist my rants to tweet.

I recently met a rock-star small business owner. As she was venting (on-and-on) about how she can’t think of value added content in the midst of client meetings, interviews and soccer practices– I opened up a word doc and handed her my laptop.

My directions to her were as follows:  Take 1.5 hours a month, open a word doc and write down 60-90 tweets.

Stumped on what to write about? Try these ideas:

• Have a Calendar: Open your outlook calendar and discuss upcoming events in the next month
• Have Favorites: View your favorite websites and link back to them in tweets
• Have Inspiration: Link articles that have inspired you, share the content and mention mentors
• Have a Pay-It-Forward Attitude: Plug past clients in a tweet with a link to THEIR website
• Have Solutions: Mention past client solutions you’ve been able to offer with your website link
• Have Personality: Write down a random thought here and there (stay P.C., of course!)
• Have Fun!

The benefit of doing this yourself one day a month is now you have 60-90 tweets all ready to go. These 2 -3 tweets per day can be copied and pasted from your word doc before you start your day, on your coffee break, on lunch or while you’re running the treadmill. Try updating your account in-real-time, but when you’re extraordinarily busy, reference this handy cheat of what to write. Keep it saved on your blackberry or desktop and allow yourself to tweet value added content.

What I’m suggesting does not replace the SOCIAL in Social Media and I strongly encourage interaction and engagement; however, if you’re just getting the hang of things this can head you in the right direction. Writing down tweets ahead of time that mention articles you like, people you admire or calendar events coming up isn’t cheating as long as you remember to be yourself and keep it SOCIAL!

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Rockin’ Women go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet is a post from She Takes on the World

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Your target market audience are the people you want to delight and excite the most with what you offer.

It is a big mistake in online personal branding (or any branding for that matter) to try to be all things to all people.  If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.  Your mantra for branding success should be, “Delight the few to attract the many”.

When you have a clear target market audience – your personal brand will have more clarity & focus, and your communications become much more effective.

Having a target market audience is a difficult concept for many people to grasp.  They fear that by focusing on a clearly defined audience, they will be limiting themselves in some way.

Branding success favors a specialist, not a generalist.  If you want to create a compelling online personal brand – think narrow and deep, rather than wide and shallow.

Realize that when you focus on a specific target market audience, you immediately enhance their perception of you as being the “go to person” in your area of specialization – and you can expect to charge more for what you do.

My target audience is business leaders and celebrities who want to create online personal brands to maximize their personal and business success.  What’s yours?

In my next article I’ll take you through a process to help you define your target audience.

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Who is Your Target Audience? is a post from She Takes on the World

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Remember when your network consisted of people whose business cards had notes written all over the back so you can remember where you met them? Times have changed. Do you even know who is in your network and if so, how are you managing your contacts?

Fact: Last week I received 27 invitations on LinkedIn
Fact: Of those 27 invites only 7 introduced themselves
Fact: Of those 7 introductions only 3 were customized
Fact: Of those 27 invites only 3 were accepted

Before you begin requesting or accepting invitations to an exclusive network ask yourself these questions:

1. Can this person or their immediate network provide an added value to my .Net Worth?
2. Can I express to this person my added value to their network?
3. Can I adequately MANAGE this contact?
4. Is this person my targeted consumer?
   IF NOT:
5. Am I interested in reading their updates, articles or potential in-mails/comments?
   OR
6. Will this person be an extra “number” on my connections list?

In a flattening world, it’s important to manage the meaningful contacts and maintain worthwhile relationships. If you’ve chosen to be an “Open Networker” try exporting  important contacts into your CRM and if you don’t have a CRM try a free, online service like TimeToNote (It’s limited in comparison to pricey CRM’s, but a site like TimeToNote will allow you to manage up to 250 of your closest contacts).

The point of online networking is to find your valued contacts easily, stay connected to them and provide worth.

Next time you request or accept an invitation ask yourself this:

Is my NETWORK adding to my .NET WORTH?

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Staying up-to-date with social media status updates is time consuming and potentially catastrophic, particularly when you’re responsible for a company’s brand image.  We get it, but committing to using Social Media to brand your service or product is a pledge to your name and supporters to be consistent all the way across. For those who are wearing the combat boots, high heels and track shoes all at once, there are ways to simplify your tasks when maintaining your online updates.

Over-committed social net-worker, meet Ping.fm and PixelPipe. Ping can be used to leverage Ning, MerchantCircle, Twitter,  and countless other social media status updates. PixelPipe is fairly similar and describes easing the experience of having to “Upload photos, video, and audio files…” across your social media sites of preference.

High learning curve? Not at all!

• Create an account
• Link Social Media Memberships back to the aggregator
• Select which sites are appropriate to publish your message
• Type your message in the status update
• Click Enter and TA-DA!

You’ve officially saved yourself logging in several sites to churn out the same message. Maybe you’ve even saved yourself a finger cramp or two. Most importantly, you’re preserving your position with consumers!

A few aggregator Do’s and Don’ts:

• DO remember your audience. FB Fans may not be interested in the same message as your LI community.
• DO use an aggregator when you’re sending a general marketing message.
• DO use an aggregator when you’re contributing to your followers and have educational information to share.
• DON’T use an aggregator when engaging in dialogue, NO @replies should be multi-published!
• DON’T use an  aggregator to SPAM a message. Ultimately, untargeted posts will lead to users blocking your updates or unconsciously blind to content of value.

Stay consistent and have fun.

**Other sites worth investigation: Nutshellmail and Friendfeed.

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Too Busy to Leverage Your Social Media Status Updates? How to Maintain Your Brand Online
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In my experience most people are not clear on what the word “strategy” means.

It is not about setting up social media accounts and making a lot of noise. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are just tactical vehicles through which you can communicate your brand strategy (whether it is your personal brand or your company brand).

Like any form of marketing, if you want to create a compelling online personal brand you must start by getting very clear on your strategy first. Then you have to make sure you execute your strategy effectively.

Most people seem to jump straight into execution (i.e. doing stuff) with little or no thought to getting their strategy right first. This is a big mistake.

So what does the word “strategy” mean when it comes to your online personal brand?

Your strategy is what makes you meaningfully different and valued by your target audience.

To create a compelling online personal brand, you need to be able to answer the following key questions:

1. What are your goals? What exactly do you want to achieve, and how will you measure your success?
2. Who is your target audience?
3. Why should they care?
4. What’s in it for them?
5. Why should they believe you?

Being able to answer these five questions is just the starting point to create an effective online personal brand.

I look forward to explaining these steps in more details in future articles.

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Do You Know What a Personal Brand Strategy Is? is a post from She Takes on the World

• The media gets flooded with millions of pitches per day, which is why good follow up skills are essential. You should follow up within a day or two after you send the first pitch. It is very rare a story gets picked up with one pitch.  If they are not interested, they will tell you.

• You must know your story inside-out before you even attempt to build a media list. Get every angle of the story covered by conducting interviews with the people involved, industry professionals, and any other research you can find.  You don’t want to pitch a story and not be able to adequately answer questions from journalists and editors.

• Create variations of the story for different media outlets.  Try not to embellish the story to make it seem more interesting.  Keep each variation concise and to the point because media professionals do not have a lot of time on their hands.

• Research each contact at each publication you think would be interested in publishing your story. Read the journalist’s work to determine what he or she is looking for. Research and find out their writing style and contact preference. Keep a top ten list of the journalists you think would be interested in covering the story.

• Test your pitch with one or two journalists before flooding the media marketplace. You can email or call the journalist. Keep the pitch to three sentences if you call.  Always keep in mind that most journalists prefer to be contacted through email.

• Make sure press releases answer the six questions – who, what, where, when, why and how.  Include the correct contact information as well as a photo.

• If you don’t know the correct contact at the publication, don’t email or CC your pitch to everyone’s email address that you do find.

• Always return journalists, editors and reporters calls immediately because they are usually working under tight deadlines.  Be courteous and try to call after 10AM and before 4PM.  Media pros need time to get organized.

• Never send a gift or offer to take media pros out to lunch or dinner because it is considered unethical.

If you follow these media rules, you’ll be amazed how quickly your online and printed media kit expands.

Generating Free Publicity for Your Business is a post from She Takes on the World

Twitter has been an incredible tool for connecting with like-minded people from around the world. I am always on the lookout for women entrepreneurs and women in business to follow, connect with, and learn from.

The following 30 women entrepreneurs have excellent twitter feeds to follow:

@JackieBiz -Jackie is a business owner and blogger who tweets about business resources, inspiration, and opinions.

@ManishaThakor -Manisha is a personal finance expert and author on women and money. Her tweets are geared towards helping you meet financial goals.

@BrandYou -Cindy is a marketing strategist who tweets about how to create buzz for your brand.

@TheBizWoman -Patricia is an entrepreneur and writer who tweets tips and tidbits for women business owners.

@Bernadeen -Bernadeen is a business coach who tweets small business tips, articles, and resources.

@NikkiPilkington -Nikki owns an internet marketing company and tweets about search engine optimization.

@MomBizCoach -Lara helps mom entrepreneurs grow their businesses and tweets about small business tips and resources.

@TiffanieTillman -Tiffanie is an entrepreneur and helps small business owners outsource work to have more time to grow their businesses.

@NinaKaufman -Nina is an award winning business lawyer who tweets legal tips and other resources for entrepreneurs.

@simplicityinc -A. Michelle helps solo entrepreneurs develop micro business plans and tweets useful business advice.

@alevit -Alexandra is a bestselling business author and WSJ columnist who tweets valuable articles and advice.

@LenaWest -Lena is a social media strategist and writer who tweets about the impact of social media and other business tips.

@ShoestringGirl -Jessica is a marketer who tweets about promoting your business on a shoestring budget.

@smallbiztrends -Anita is an expert on small business trends and her tweets will help you be more successful as a business owner.

@LeilaSamoodi -Leila is an accountant who will help you better understand the financial side of your business.

@LeaWoodward -Lea runs her business from places the world and tweets about how you can make your business location independent too.

@smartwoman -Vicki is an entrepreneur and tweets about women, business and events for women entrepreneurs.

@sheconomy -Stephanie tweets about advertising, social media, branding, and marketing to women.

@ShellyKramer -Shelly owns a marketing agency and shares branding and marketing strategies that work as well as those that don’t work.

@WomenWhoTech -Allyson champions women in the tech industry and tweets her opinions and helpful business resources.

@entreprediva -Mirie is a Life Design Coach and tweets inspirational quotes and insights for entrepreneurs.

@startupprincess -Kelly’s goal is to empower women entrepreneurs and she tweets about various small business topics.

@KairaRouda -Kaira is an award winning author who tweets about how to build a unique and genuine brand.

@JillFoster -Jill tweets about the power of communities, social media, and other business resources.

@NicoleSimon -Nicole is a sought after social media consultant in Europe who tweets about the latest social media happenings.

@MarketLikeAChik -Coree is a marketer and shares tips and resources in social media, branding, and positive marketing mindset.

@TamiMcCarthy -Tami is CEO of TMG Brand Communications and tweets interesting articles and comments on advertising and branding.

@LindaCSmith -Linda has an excellent feed for entrepreneurs because she constantly tweets quality resources, tutorials, tips and articles.

@ClareLancaster -Clare is an internet marketer who shares online strategies and resources for women in business.

@NancyFClark -Nancy is an advocate for women in business and tweets business and career resources as well as facts about women in the workplace.

I realize there are many more amazing women entrepreneurs on twitter who are missing from this list and I invite you to share some of your favorites. For more women entrepreneurs on twitter, visit my twitter list of women entrepreneurs. And don’t forget to follow me @nataliemacneil for insights on women in business, resources for entrepreneurs, and interviews with successful women.

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Thirty Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter is a post from She Takes on the World

The campaign brought the company over 25,000 StumbleUpon referrals, nearly 3000 twitter referrals, and 170 published news stories and blog posts. If you’re thinking, “wow, I need that kind of exposure,” read the Grasshopper case study they published. It may give you inspiration for your own viral marketing campaign.

Grasshopper also produced a video for the campaign. If you have not yet seen the YouTube video, Entrepreneurs Can Change the World, you can watch it below. It will leave you feeling inspired and make you proud to be an entrepreneur.

A Little Inspiration for Entrepreneurs is a post from She Takes on the World