Get a reader

There’s so much content out there, how on earth do you manage to read it all?

Get an RSS reader.

1. If you haven’t already got a google account, get one. It’s free. Click on “sign in” on the google home page (top right) and then click on “create new account”
2. Once you have an account, sign in.
3. Then go to the top menu. Under “more” go to “reader”
4. That’s your reader.
5. Simply add subscriptions by clicking on the “add a subscription” button. Type in either the url of the news site or blog you wish to follow, or search by search term and it will return results of news sites and blogs matching your terms. Then click on the +subscription button under the ones you wish to follow.
6. Once a day, or more, you can go into reader and scan down all the latest news relevant to you.

You can add my blog to your reader paste in www.sharonroessen.wordpress.com

What to tweet

A few ideas on how to be interesting and engage people on Twitter. Thanks again to  @JoelComm

LINK TWEET “This is what I’m working on now”
Post a new blog article then tweet about it. Linking your blog article to the tweet. Use a URL shortening tool so that the URL doesn’t use up all 140 characters. I use Hootsuite.com and this has a shortening tool in it, tinyurl.com does same thing too. If you have an RSS feed on your site you can register on twitterfeed.com and it posts tweet as soon as content on your site changes.

CLASSIC TWEET “This is what I’m doing now”
The easiest to write – but try to make interesting don’t post inane stuff like what you’re eating.  Add personality too them, they tell people who you are.  They don’t have to just be work related.

OPINION TWEET “This is what I’m thinking now”
Sharing thoughts on your actions. But for business purposes keep your opinions limited to topics on your industry. Comment on industry news stories or comment on what another industry expert has tweeted.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED TWEET “This is what I’ve jsut done”
Announcing “I’ve just done this” is another way of saying “What do you think of this?”. You may well get replies on this kind of tweet.

ENTERTAINMENT TWEET “I’m making you laugh now”
Being entertaining now and again will get you followers.

QUESTION TWEET “Can you help me with something now”
Ask for help and advice. People love to help. Questions can also be used to start conversation.

PICTURE TWEET “Look at what I’ve been doing”
Post a picture to Flickr or a video to Youtube – then tweet about it and link to it.  Alternatively, use www.twitpic.com, load image and tweet it at the same time.

So no excuse for boring tweets or tweets that are just loaded with direct marketing messages.

Give your tweets personality and supply interesting information that your industry and customers will find useful.

8 ideas for leveraging LinkedIn for b2b marketers

LinkedIn is the most obvious of the social media offerings for b2b marketers.

Here’s a few ideas I’ve come up with so far:

1. Make sure you look serious. Get an account, connect it to your twitter account, complete your profile and add a photo.
2. Search for groups that match your business interest. Request to join active (many members and lots of discussion) groups. Do this for many groups.
3. Once you’ve joined a group you can look at the members in that group. Should any of these people be in your network? Invite them.Look at the discussions taking place. Join in. Post new threads and comment on existing ones where you have something to add. Don’t be overtly “salesy” you’ll get kicked out of the group.
4. Start your own group if there isn’t one already on your area of interest.
5. Post your event in the events section. And tell your network you’ve posted it. Ask people to RSVP.
6. Search for other events in your area of interest. Look at who has RSVP’d to that event and invite them to join your network and then your event.
7. Search in Answers for questions being posted in your area of interest. Go and answer some (but only if you have something real to say) add your url at the end of the answer.  Conversely, post some questions “I’m looking for an expert on email marketing in Melbourne, anyone know anyone?”
8. Market you LinkedIn presence. On your email signature, your website, your blog…

Here’s another article on this subject http://www.michaelflavin.com/4-tips-putting-linkedin-to-work-for-b2b-marketers/

Anyone any more tips?

Tweet etiquette

Learned this from Joelcomm.com whilst having breakfast. Pretty obvious but worth blogging I think:

1. Don’t spam. Don’t follow loads more than follow you. Don’t constantly send out blatant marketing messages like “check out my blog” “sign upto my RSS feed” “come to my event” …mix these with other tweets too.(Joel promises to teach me how to write these other tweets later in the chapter – will blog when I get there)

2. Follow style rules. Use real words not SMS speak. Don’t type in UPPER CASE, that’s shouting. But can use symbols like @ = +

3. Give credit for retweets. Retweets help you go viral. But don’t ask people to retweet you.

4. Stick to 140 characters. Don’t split a tweet over many tweets in an effort to say more.

5. Follow people that follow you. But you don’t have to follow everyone. Check out their twitter home page before following and see if they are tweeting stuff you want to read.

6. Spark conversation and entertain

7 ways to get followers on Twitter

At time of writing I have been tweeting for just over two weeks. I’ve posted 39 tweets and have 38 followers. Not too bad for two weeks – but I want more followers…

Here’s seven killer strategies to get more followers. Taken from Joel Comm’s Twitter Power book (www.twitterpower.com)

1. Look for people you already know. Load you outlook address book to google mail and then link this to Twitter. And ue www.search.twitter.com for a much better search engine to find people on Twitter.

2. Tweet your blog. Load your twitter feed onto your blog and website. Go to twitter.com/badges to download standard plug ins for type pad and blogger. For WordPress go to alexking.org/projects/wordpress.

3. Pay your followers! Give them something free if they follow you. Free ebook or report for example.

4. Respond to requests. Spark conversations. Ask questions, use the reply button and reply to others questions. But only on questions where you can add value.

5. Mobilize your social network. Place your tweets on facebook and LinkedIn.

6. Put your twitter address in your email signature. Easy hey!

7. Run a contest. Ask a question, give a time restriction and offer a prize for best answer.

I’m going to test all of these (already done 1,2,5,6) over the next few weeks. I’ll post the results, please post yours.

Times they are a changing

Ok here goes my first post on my first blog.

So I’m a traditionally trained direct marketer. And pretty good at it!

I’ve just returned back to work after another six month maternity leave (my third) to find that the world has changed for marketing people. When I left in July 2009 I was starting to dig around social media and work out how it could work for my company. I wrote a paper on it emailed it to my marketing guys around the world and told them to start doing it. That’s that box ticked I thought!

How wrong I was.

Returned in Jan 2010 to find we’re (www.terrapinn.com) not doing any of it. And many of our competitors are. We used to lead marketing innovation in the events industry now we’re lagging way behind.

I freaked.

I bought a couple of books on amazon and starting reading – fast. (Will blog about what I learned in these shortly).

There’s only one way to change behavior and that’s by changing your own. I need to lead by example. So by the end of my first week back I started tweeting. By the end of my second week back I reactivated linked In and now its the end of my forth week and I’m starting this blog.

I am totally sold on the power of social media and I am passionate about events. I want to change the way Terrapinn creates events, markets them and entire customer experience.

We run over 200 conferences annually – all around the world. That’s a lot of people I have influence and change.

So this is what I’m going to blog about – my journey in changing business conferences through first changing myself, then my company and then maybe the entire industry.

I’d love input from social media experts and my colleagues and peers in the business conference industry.

follow me on twitter: twitter.com/sharonroessen

Was that ok for my first blog?