If you’ve built your blog, your twitter account, your Linkedin account, your Ning community, your Facebook fan page…. then now you need to be telling people about them.

But not in a spammy way.

Adding your addresses to your email signature is a perfect way to spread the word – with your kind of audience – without being in their face about it.

If I receive an email from a colleague or client, it’s good to discover they’re on Twitter (or Linkedin etc) by reading their signature – and it’s easy just to click on the link and follow, fan, connect, or subscribe to them.

To add your addresses to your email signature in Outlook, go to Tools / Options / Mail Format / Signatures.

Click on ‘new’ – call it a name eg business, and then in the formatting box type in your signature. You can change your font size and colour. And you can highlight your addresses and add a link to them (click on the insert hyperlink button and add in the URL). These links won’t work in plain text emails but they will in HTML emails.

You can add in your logo, your social media addresses with links, format the colour of your signature text – or whatever you’d like to include in your signature.

You can even add in Twitter or Linkedin buttons. Download the icons from sites like this and import using the ‘Picture button’, then select your button icon and click on ‘Insert Hyperlink’ button and add in your relevant social networking address.

You can create different signatures for the same email account. For example, you might have a personal signature and your business signature. When it comes to sending your email, simply click on signatures from the tool bar and select which signature you’d like to use for that particular email.

You can also select which signature is your default signature and if it appears on new or replied messages, back in the Signatures screen.

Now your emails are helping you spread the word about your social media activity.

At a recent social media workshop this was the second most asked question (after how do I find time for social media?).

This is such a huge topic… where to start? (eg grabbing your twitter name is a good start)

The first step is to have a plan (who is your audience, what are my objectives/strategy, what platforms will I use, how will I measure it? etc), and to listen to your audience (using google alerts, twitter search, social mention, read blogs etc).

But attendees really wanted the nitty gritty ‘how to get started guides’ on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook, so here are just a few;

Twitter

-          Check out twitter’s own guide for businesses covering what it is, getting started, learning the lingo, best practices, case studies and more resources.

Linkedin

-          Similarly, Linkedin provide tips to get you started. They have modules here and the three steps for new users here on creating your profile, getting connections and then leveraging Linkedin.

Facebook Business Pages

- Facebook have some basic info about their business pages here.  But the fabulous people at Hubspot have the best info; a video on how to create a Facebook Business Page in five steps.

Enjoy getting started with these social media guides!

One of the biggest obstacles for business owners engaging in social media is the time factor. At my workshops the most commonly asked question is – How do I fit in social media? How do I find time for social media?

So here are my five tips to help you fit social media into your already busy day;

1. Decide how much time you will spend on social media a day.

Sounds simple – but this is the golden rule. If you don’t have a time frame you can get sucked into the wonderful world of blogs, tweets, viral videos and search stats and not surface for hours…

Decide whether you will spend 15 minutes, half an hour or an hour – and stick to it. Block it out in your diary – just as you would an important meeting. And when your time is up; stop.

2. Set up a routine

Your routine could be that first thing in the morning, with a coffee in hand, is your social media time. (This works for me – but for others it’s after lunch or in the evening).

During this time you might scan all the blogs you subscribe to, read the interesting ones, tweet them, or comment on them. You might scan through all your friend’s tweets; retweet the good ones and reply to others, and add your own tweets. You might scan through all your search feeds and jump into relevant conversations. Or you might spend the time writing a blog post on a particular day; whatever it is, make it a habit.

3. Use social media management tools

There are two very useful tools that will help you manage your social media immensely; Tweetdeck and a Feed Reader.

-          Tweetdeck is like a dashboard – at a glance you can view your friends’ tweets, your direct messages, any mentions of you, you can add in your searches – or customise it to suit your needs. As well as making it easy to tweet and retweet, you can post to multiple twitter accounts, your Facebook Business page and your Linkedin status from here.

-          Feed reader – a feed reader like Pageflakes or Netvibes as your internet browser homepage means at glance you can view all the updated blog feeds you subscribe to, and all your search feeds (eg Google alerts, twitter search, etc). You don’t have to visit every blog or website – definitely a time saver.

I’m not a fan of automating your social media – it’s hardly ‘social’ then; it’s more robotic or spammy – but a tool like twitterfeed allows you to feed your latest blog post to your twitter stream (and you can even add in a prefix to appear on each tweet like; New blog post), which does save you time.

4. Give up something else

Is there an area in your business that you could divert your time away from? For example, instead of creating an ad campaign, use that time for social media, or instead of travelling to, and attending, a networking function use that time for social media.

5. Get some help with your social media

Many hands make light work. Be open to your employees contributing to aspects of your social media that interest them, whether it’s monitoring mentions or tweeting.

Invite guest bloggers to contribute to your blog; they could be colleagues, suppliers or customers. Create some guest blog guidelines so they’re aware of the tone and preferred content of your blog. Their contributions could add a new dimension to your blog – and your contributors get to feel part of your community too.

This is my favourite viral video of the week – an ad for a well known dog food brand.

This is a stunning video (but then I’m a biased dog-owner and aspiring movie maker). Though everyone else agrees (apart from the fact that the concept was stolen from Pleix  – which is worth a watch too; though it looks like they are throwing the dogs around) the video is striking, very cute and has that wow factor. I sent it viral.

But interestingly, all the comments on YouTube repeatedly mention how the dog food itself is actually rubbish. I haven’t seen one comment say yep, and the dog food is the healthiest, most nutritional dog food around. (They actually say; “this brand is one of the worst foods for dogs out there. So if you love your dog, buy something else”)

So the video worked but the product still sucks.

LESSON: Social media won’t save you if your product sucks. It will help your word of mouth marketing (good or bad ) though.

(BTW if you liked the sound track it’s here )

I recently came across this checklist of how to drive traffic to your website using social media. (Probably from the same people that Snipe parodies here)

To me, this kind of checklist is the ‘dark side’ of social media; because it misses the whole point of social media entirely. I’m on a mission like Luke Skywalker to highlight the ‘light side’ (except I’m more Princess Leia).

So these were the points;

Decide what you do

(Good starting point… though just not what you do, but what problems you solve for people.)

Figure out your key words

(okay..)

Set up gmail account so you are not inundated with junk

(Why not be authentic and include your real business email – you have spam filters anyway)

Set up a Twitter account. Set up a Facebook account and make friends

(A Facebook business page I think… but do we have a proper plan yet? Or is it just ‘get traffic?’ What about figuring out who our audience is, listening to them first…?)

Set up a blog account -www.blogspot.com is one idea and it is free

(Wordpress is better, and you can host it yourself and customise it. A blog is a powerful and serious extension of your brand and does require planning and thoughtful implementation.)

Go to Word and write a blog post (make it brief, using your brand at the beginning, middle and end of the post, and a weblink to your website). Cut and paste text from Word to blogspot and publish post

(Sounds riveting.)

Go to www.twellow.com. Look up as many people that are interested in your industry and ask them to follow you.

(Why, why would they follow you? What are you offering? What relationship have you built? Asking me to follow you is like spamming me with invites to share my email address to receive my inheritance or lottery prize.)

Blog fortnightly, tweet four times a day (you can automate this) facebook once a day

(Automating… *sigh*… this is like the phone call I received today… I answered, there was a pause (I was wondering if I had a heavy breather type of call. No.) A guy launched into saying he was from such and such company and carried on – he didn’t stop – it was a recorded message! The horror. What company in their right mind would think that completely out of the blue, interrupting my day, their recorded phone call (not even asking my name or making any attempt at building a connection – other than I answered their call) would convince me that gosh yes I do so need such a product from this stranger spamming me on the other end of the phone???

I do feed my blog feeds to my twitter, yes, – but that’s it; and that just saves me typing it in. Social media is SOCIAL not robot media.)

A week later go to www.huitter.com and clear out anyone not following you. Do this fortnightly.

(I so don’t get this. And I so hate this advice – it screams that you’re just using twitter for your own superficial means. If I’m following Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan and Scott Monty – and they don’t follow me back – I’m not going to unfollow them!! I’m following them in the first place because they are interesting to follow. It’s not about getting them to follow me. It’s about being interested in other people – not pushing my stuff! And if they did follow me back it should be on my merit of being a worthy twitterer not to do the “if you don’t follow me back then I’ll unfollow you.” This isn’t the school yard… this is SOCIAL media not spammy game playing media)

The idea is to get the brand name out there, exposure. Nothing else.

(Actually it’s about building relationships. If you want brand exposure – use a billboard. Really.

Social media is listening, engaging, creating good content and measuring – and a whole lot more.)

When you get good at it, it takes about ten minutes out of your day once it is set up, it is set up and away you go.

(Actually it will probably take longer to listen, to engage, to moderate, to create content and measure it all – but it’s worth it. Because you’ll be building stronger relationships- with people that like what you’re about (instead of them adding you to their spam box). And you can’t set it up and forget it; social media is a long term relationship that requires your energy and interaction.

Sure you might get lots of traffic – but will they come back? Have you engaged them? Have you offered anything of value? Has your brand reputation increased?)

Now don’t worry if you don’t understand any of this, just monkey see, monkey do.

(I believe if you don’t understand or can’t be bothered to learn how to engage and offer valuable content – then why bother. If you’re learning and making mistakes – that’s okay – but to follow like a sheep to cheat the system on a quick rich track, that’s just lazy. If you’re going to follow a cookie cutter formula to ‘drive traffic’, then you’re just another spammer with no soul.)

Seriously. (And I lay down my light sabre now.)

As everyone winds down to the Christmas holidays and looking for any excuse not to do any work, I’m sharing my favourite video picks for the year. Enjoy!

Best social media viral video

Fabulous message, stirring soundtrack and smart visuals… I play this at the beginning of our social media training days.

Best staff sing along

Don’t you wish your Friday night drinks were as inspired and fun as this?

Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Best chuckle of the year (and feels Xmas-y too)

My Dad, an ex-farmer even enjoyed this one and sent it viral. (According to the reporter on MSN Video, the farmer says he received help from his well-trained sheepdog)

Best example of a viral video

This is a fun video – for Volkswagon, without a car in sight. I love it when advertisements aren’t all ‘we’re so amazing, buy me’.

Best love story video

I’m a romantic and I watched all 12 minutes of this to see if the guy got the gal. Fabulous.

Best thought provoking video

I don’t ‘do’ Xmas shopping. I don’t even own a TV. Here’s why.

http://www.youtube.com/user/storyofstuffproject

Best New Zealand video

I’m a kiwi. The making of this vid is worth checking out too.

Best social media love song

Love for the 2000’s – social media style. A cute ditty.

Another classic viral video

What guys do when they’re bored? Or a stealth brand campaign? (what brand comes to mind when you watch this?)

Best customer strikes back video

Cleverly crafted, with just the right balance of jocularity and outrage, this video got the attention of the airline, who took the message on board.

What has been your favourite video of the year?

When I started Her Business magazine back in 1995, websites weren’t around; we didn’t even have email.

By 2002 we had a website that gave us a presence online and automated a lot of processes; readers could subscribe online or change their address, which saved us lots of time. For awhile I couldn’t really see other benefits of being online.

Though by then I’d begun to discover blogging and began to play with the typepad platform. A whole new world opened up – I could do my own publishing online (without a web developer or designer) and that was beyond exciting.

Over the years my passion for media has moved away from print media to online media – and here’s why;

-          The trees – think of the trees (say no more)

-          The carbon footprint; each magazine has to be delivered to you (or your store) in some way; by road, air or sea.

-          We can archive content online. Whereas your old magazine pile just takes up a load of space.

-          Searching content is fast, accurate and easy online. Offline – you have to spend (frustrated) hours flicking through hundreds of copies of magazines looking for that article you KNOW you read somewhere.

-          Online you can usually leave a comment for the post author (unless it’s Seth Godin), and they could even email you back, you could even make a connection with them. In the print days there was no way to get hold of an author, to get in front of them and say I agree/ disagree – high profile authors were unreachable.

-          The instant-ness. Send me a press release for my print magazine (it’s bi-monthly as in every second month) and it has to arrive at least a month before publication to get through the process of content selection, editing, laying out, proofing, prepress, printing and distribution and postal strikes and un-returned phone calls and everything else in between. It takes ages before you see your news in print – and by then it’s OLD news. Chances are your news could be void because of the economy collapse, swineflu or a local disaster. Send me something for online publication and it’ll probably be up by sunset. Cool eh? Same goes for advertisers and they LOVE that. They can tailor their advertising for what’s important right now. (For a fabulous example of reacting to this real time decision making, watch this Advertising Age video on Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz explain why they’re shifting 80 percent ad spend away from print to online advertising and social media.)

-          You get to tell your story (how you want). I remember all the women in business writing, emailing, calling us, wanting their story included in our magazine – but we never had enough pages to include everyone’s business success story. Now you don’t have to wait for someone to print your story; you can go publish it yourself on your blog (Or if you’re really committed print your book, or ebook, on lulu). I so love that.

-          Online is cheaper (sometimes). Printing and distribution is really expensive. I used to believe to get ahead in this world I needed to own a printing company. That’s changed now. Now I can create a blog (for free) – and it’s there for the whole world to read (though of course you have to get them to find it to read it, but still…). You don’t have to be a big company to do PR; to get noticed, followed, fanned, commented on, connected to, friended. Today getting noticed is about outsmarting not outspending anymore – and that’s pretty damn exciting for small innovative companies with passionate people power rather than spending power.

-          The reach. We’d print a magazine and send it to you if you subscribed or maybe you’d stumble across it in a retail outlet somewhere in our distribution area. We put content online now and you could be sitting in your office in Tasmania at midnight and search for something; stumble across a link, see a mention somewhere – and you’d find us. I love that too. (And then you can still subscribe to us.)

-          Because of devices like the Kindle and the Sony reader we can take our blog reading on the bus, to the beach, in the bath. So now even the portability and readability factor of magazines that set them apart (and ahead of) online media has been trumped.

And I bet there’s heaps more reasons why online media is leading the way…. (for readers, publishers and marketers).

Your eyes meet across a crowded room

-          You read an interesting re-tweet or stumbleupon them or follow a link on a blog.

Or your friends set you up

-          Mr Tweet recommends them or Linkedin says you might know them.

So you do your homework and check them out

-          You google search their name, read their Linkedin profile, read their Facebook profile, read their Twitter bio, check out their Page Rank and Alexa Ranking.

You kind of stalk them a bit

-          You set up google alerts and twitter search feeds.

You ask your friends what they think

You ask a question on Linkedin, and on Yahoo questions, and post a thread in a Forum.

Now you know they’re not an axe murderer

Now you know :

-          They’re friendly and popular – They’ve got 1951 fans on Facebook

-          They reliable – They blog and tweet consistently

-          They’re intelligent – Their slideshare presentation has been favourited 87 times.

-          They’ve got a sense of humour – They like THAT YouTube clip too

They ask you out

They request to connect with you on Linkedin and they follow you on twitter

They show you a good time

They offer you a free industry report, tweet you a coupon, give you a free place on a webinar.

You’re impressed

You’re impressed

They invite you home

You read their blog

There’s foreplay

They answer your question on Twitter and comment on your blog.

You want more

You subscribe to their blog feed and sign up for their newsletter

You do the deed

You buy their product /service

You’re smiling

You recommend them on Linkedin and become a fan on their Facebook page.

Image credit: JakobT_98

well Scott has… here’s a great little ditty about unrequited love in this age of social media.

I love the internet and social media in particular – but I see ‘red’ when I see people abusing it… four instances come to mind straight away…

A friend of mine prints photos onto canvas and recently mentioned she discovered a photo site where you go in the draw to win prizes for uploading photos of your kids. She contacted them and offered some of her products as prizes. I’m always interested in who’s doing what so checked out the site – and alarm bells started clanging.

The site was all about uploading pictures of your kids (into different age categories) for the chance to be in to win weekly prizes. There were no contact details of the site owners – just a contact form and there was no ‘about us’ page – basically no one owned this site. There was nothing else to it – just pictures of kids. There’s some sick people out there… and while this site may have all the good intentions in the world (though if they did, why don’t they include blogs, forums and other activity rather than just kids pictures?) – it looks dodgy to me.

Another example are those blog sites that contain RSS feeds of other people’s content. The owners ‘steal’ your content and mash it all together on their site (along with lots of google ads) – again no one owns the site and the site isn’t usually about anything in particular; it’s just clogging up the internet, hogging domain names and search results and annoying people like me by stealing my content and putting it somewhere I don’t want it and didn’t authorise it to be.

But then I read this post from Duct Tape Marketing and his philosophical attitude thawed me out somewhat – he’s pragmatic (there’s nothing you can do, so if you can’t win – get clever) and he doesn’t waste energy getting upset (like I do) instead he’s found a clever way to add his signature and details to his RSS feed so when his content is used elsewhere, all his details and links are included. So that means more links back to his blog, readers know he’s written the content and can search for more. Check out John’s post on how to do it – and to soak up his pragmatism.

Thirdly are blog spam commenters – they’re getting cleverer and more insidious and annoying… Recently a client ‘approved’ a handful of comments from six different people from the same URL all slamming his services and recommending a competing service (which was their URL). My client thought it was balanced to have some negative commentary on his blog – yet really all they were doing was spamming his blog – in a meaningful way – to get readers to check out their own website and join their community. URRRGHH!!!

Fourthly are the email newsletters that I’ve ‘apparently’ signed up for. Either I was working way too late after a wine or two and thought I couldn’t live without receiving the e-learning for pets in Spanish newsletter – or it’s spam. And because I’m afraid to click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button for fear of confirming my email address, and thus inviting a deluge of even more spam, the newsletter keeps on arriving. Damn you spammer.

Finally – I loved this tweet: Dear Spammer, If you start your email with “Dear Sir” it will be automatically deleted. Love, Ma’am

What makes you see ‘red’ online?