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Your favorite 5

Quick, grab a piece of paper, don’t give this any thought, and write down the names of five people.

So what do these five people you’ve just selected represent? No, they aren’t your starting five on your first basketball team. In fact, they’re a lot more valuable than that… Now that you have selected five people, take a moment and look at how successful they are in their own lives – we’re not talking about money here.

Do they have a good family life, are they in good shape, how is their attitude, are they influencers or inhibitors in your personal life? Chance are, you’ll come to find out that the people you just named are people who are influential in your life in one way or another (your favorite five). Some might influence you financially, because you aspire to be where they are at. Others might be deeply rooted in family. Others might be holding you back from reaching your personal goals.

What’s the point?

Just as these five people influence your life in-person, these same principles hold true online as well on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, etc.

Who you spend your time with impacts your own life – whether it is having a physical conversation with them or commenting and liking their status update on Facebook.

Now that you know more about your favorite five, take a moment and think about the five people you listed. Are these people influencers or inhibitors? There’s nothing wrong with adding or removing from your favorite five. In fact, to be successful, I suggest surrounding yourself with people that will have a positive influence on your life – this can be someone who brightens your day or that somebody who really irritates you because they seem to have it all, yet they challenge you to get better.

My current social media tools

For anyone who is serious about building a business and leveraging social media, it isn’t just about being on all of the networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Google+. Each network offers something of value, along with a distinct set of fans and followers that you need to work with and develop a relationship with.

In fact, if you are not careful, social media can consume your entire day – posting updates, constantly checking your accounts for new retweets, mention or likes, or even joining new networks. Eventually, you’ll actually be hurting your business, because you have gotten away from the core of it – building new products, your website, even writing new content for your blog.

So to help you all out, I’m sharing my current social media tools that I use – to help create, monitor, and analyze my social media accounts:

Continue reading My current social media tools

5 types of status updates to build social engagement

This post doesn’t really apply to one single social network. In fact, you could apply it to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ (or even one of the other smaller social networks that you’ve joined). We’re talking about status updates.

Just being on the hottest social network doesn’t guarantee that you’ll instantly amass a large following. It also doesn’t matter how many fans, friends or followers you have. No, you need to be engaging. We’re not talking about going around and meeting every single person that you’re connected with (that would take a ridiculous amount of time). Instead, we’re talking about using the basics that all social networks are built around – the status update.

Every social network offers a variation of the status update. For Facebook users, it could be a quote, sharing an event, posting engaging photos, or simply using the questions app. Twitter users are a little more confined – 140 characters to be exact, yet the status update is still relevant to share links, break news, or even tweet a photo from your encounter with your favorite celebrity. For Pinterest users, the status update isn’t just the photo that you pin to your pinboards – that’s a good chuck of it. In addition, be sure you include keyword rich descriptions (there’s a nifty search feature as well).

So enough with the examples, right? Take me to the 5 types of status updates that you can post to help build your engagement levels!

Continue reading 5 types of status updates to build social engagement

3 things to do before joining a social network

Before you can do anything – whether it is to join a social network such as Facebook, learn how to use Instagram to capture and share photos with your friends, or even learn to get better at tracking your tweets on Twitter, you must have a goal in mind. Without a goal, it’s pretty difficult to develop a plan of attack to help get you from point A to point B.

For those of you that have made up your mind that you’re going to learn to incorporate social media into your business, here are 3 things you need to do before joining a social network.

Continue reading 3 things to do before joining a social network

How to use Twitter advanced search to get more leads

Ever wanted to know how to use Twitter.com to get more leads for your business? A lot of people often dismiss Twitter, saying they don’t understand it or that it’s too complicated. In a nutshell, Twitter is pretty easy to use — in fact, it has a lot of great benefits.

One thing I especially like is that it’s a social network that actually let’s you listen in on conversations from anyone on Twitter without having to send a friend request or be connected to that person. Additionally, you can search through Twitter conversations and learn more about the people, businesses, celebrities and brands on Twitter BEFORE you attempt to make a connection.

Why is this important? Think about it. If I were to go up to a complete stranger and start a sales pitch, not only would they look at me as being weird, but if they’re like most people, they have already made up their mind because of the awkward approach that I took.

The typical Twitter user would go to search.twitter.com; unfortunately, you’ll probably end up spending more time sifting through results that may not be relevant to what you’re looking for. That’s where Twitter’s ‘advanced search’ feature comes into play.

For anyone who owns a business, where advanced search will help you is that you can target the tweets you’re looking for. For example, if I am looking for real estate agents, instead of looking for the broad topic of ‘real estate,’ I can specify to show tweets with the keyword of real estate within a 50 mile radius of California. This will help me not only narrow down the tweets I am looking for about a particular subject, but also show me just people in the area I have specified.

To start using Twitter’s advanced search, follow the instructions below.
Continue reading How to use Twitter advanced search to get more leads

Social Media Hex Color Codes

Knowing the right social media color when working in Adobe Photoshop Elements or your favorite graphics program can help save you valuable time when you need to create a social media icon or match your design to your favorite social network.

Here’s a list of the the hex codes for your favorite social media sites. Be sure to bookmark this page this way you have the right social media colors when you need them.

Continue reading Social Media Hex Color Codes

How to Embed A Tweet From Twitter In Seconds!

In early December, Twitter added a new feature for all Twitter users – the ability to embed tweets into websites or blogs. Emdedding a tweet into your website or blog is a feature that I’m really excited about – because now it takes all of the GREAT tweets you’ve possibly missed and gives users the ability to share them with the world outside of Twitter.

What this means for website owners are more opportunities to be social – and spread other users content that you found interesting. Along the way, this means better chances for building online engagement – you can also expect to pick-up a few new followers as well!

Key points about embedded tweets:

You can reply, retweet and favorite directly from an embedded tweet
You can follow a user from an embedded tweet – no extra clicks off to Twitter
If you’ve embedded a video, they play directly in the embedded tweet

Here’s how you can embed a tweet into your website or blog.

How to embed a tweet

Continue reading How to Embed A Tweet From Twitter In Seconds!

Google launches +1, looks to beat Facebook at its own game

This is pretty cool — you should check this out…

No really, that’s what Google is thinking with their new +1 button. While social media sites come and go, one thing is certain, users have gravitated towards consuming content that their friends have liked, tweeted out or said was “cool.” Why is this? Simple.

Better out than in – how many times have you gone to a restaurant because a random stranger you met on the corner said that it was good? Now tell me how many times you have gone to a restaurant that your friends have recommended whether through a Facebook status update, a tweet, an email, etc…exactly!

With the addition of the +1 button, not only will your friends be able to see what you recommend on a given website, but Continue reading Google launches +1, looks to beat Facebook at its own game

5 areas for a successful Twitter profile

Want to get your Twitter game off the ground? I’ll be honest, adding followers is easy, getting someone to follow you back can be a challenge though. Here are five (5) areas you should complete to help create a successful Twitter profile and get you on the road to Twitter stardom! By including this basic information, you’ll up your Twitter game immensely from the start and increase your chances of others following you.

Username

Your username, referred to @username or www.twitter.com/username is your identification. Pick one that is simple and easy for others to remember. If you’re a person, try using your name. If you’re a business,use your business name or something simple.

Name

Your full name or business name will suffice. This is done within your Twitter profile settings. This is an important area because while your username may not be your compete business or personal name. Ex: Username: @ckroks, my full name can come up when someone searches for me i.e. Christian Karasiewicz or a close variation, Chris Karasiewicz. Including this is important because it helps people find you not only through a Google search, but also through a Twitter search as well.

Website address

One key thing about Twitter – it is a conduit, a place for directing other users to your content. If you have a website and don’t list it, it is like saying I have a business, but I don’t tell people about it. If you don’t want traffic to your site, don’t tell people. If you want traffic and don’t list your site, don’t complain about not having any customers. You need to direct people to the place you want them to go to. It could be a website, your Facebook profile so they connect with you further, a LinkedIn account, etc…

Profile photo

Probably common sense, but keeping the standard Twitter profile picture probably won’t get you too many friends. Make your profile more inviting by adding your photo – think professional looking, not Cancun beach. If you’re a business or setting up a Twitter profile for your business, create a logo. Image sizes are as follows. On twitter.com/username, your image is 73px x 73px. In the timeline, it is 48px x 48 px. Create one!

Twitter background

The same concept holds true with your Twitter background. Change out the default one — it is under https://twitter.com/settings/account. If you want some free Twitter backgrounds, this is a site I recommend using: http://www.twitrbackgrounds.com/. It’s free, I’m not getting paid for promoting it – they just do a good job. If you want to really kick your Twitter background up, be sure to check-out my next note on doing this. For now, a free solution will suffice.

So there you have it. 5 areas to a successful Twitter profile. While this won’t guarantee you’ll get followers, it will help make your Twitter profile more appealing and inviting for others to want to follow you.