One of the biggest problems faced when businesses try to use social media as a marketing tool is that there are simply too many social media sites. A day doesn’t go by when I’m not asked about this new site or that old site and whether or not they can be used is marketing. Most can. However, most simply do not have the reach to make them worthwhile. For the majority of businesses, if they stay focused on four current social sites, they’ll have the vast majority of their marketing covered.

Some big sites were excluded. It’s not that Tumblr doesn’t have its place or that Foursquare is useless. It’s that the time and energy necessary to make them stronger is not worth the return on investment. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest are the big dogs right now. They don’t take a ton of time to master and the results are strong compared to the effort put into them.

• Facebook – This is the only no-brainer out there. If you only use one social media site for your marketing, this is it. From both a social interaction perspective as well as a public relations perspective, Facebook can cover as much as 70% of your social media marketing efforts.
• Twitter – This is often the hardest for businesses to understand. They look at it, give it a try, and believe that the results aren’t worth the effort. The problem with that argument is that Twitter is still extremely popular and more importantly the time necessary to have a rock-solid Twitter presence is minutes a day at most. Don’t abandon the low-hanging fruit just because the results aren’t apparent. If you use it right, the results will come.
• Google+ – Even if you don’t believe that Google+ will emerge as a true social media force (it will, but I won’t argue that here), the search engine marketing benefits of building up and maintaining a strong presence on the platform cannot be argued. Few would say they couldn’t use better search results or more traffic from Google. Their social network is one of the ways to improve those results.
• Pinterest – Just like Twitter, Pinterest falls into the category of low-investment, higher-returns. One of the things that differentiates Pinterest from other social sites is that they’ve embraced business usage more readily than other platforms. Posting and maintaining a quality Pinterest presence can be literally less than a minute a day and many of those who use the platform swear by it.

There’s a common theme here. Effort versus reward. If you measure your returns relative to the amount of effort put into the maintenance, you’ll find that these are the sites that generate the highest level. Used properly, just about any business can benefit from a strong presence on these four social media sites.

In business, we often look to social media as another venue through which to achieve our business goals. It's a marketing goldmine - at least that's what the experts are telling us. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the websites and apps that the people, our potential customers, are visiting, so putting out our marketing messages on these venues makes absolute sense.

The problem with that premise is that people aren't going to those sites to receive marketing. One can argue that the same is true for television and they would be right. Television is an extremely effective advertising platform for many despite the fact that most people don't like seeing advertisements. The real difference is choice. On television, radio, and other venues, we have the choice to change the channel but normally we sit through and watch the marketing in between our shows because we don't want to miss it when it comes back on. On social media, the messages are chosen. Those who are posting content that doesn't appeal can be easily unfollowed. In the case of Facebook, they can be blocked, removed from the news feed, unfollowed, and even reported as spam.

It's a paradox. How does a business achieve their goals on social media while maintaining a connection with the audience that prevents them from blocking us? There are several answers to this question and many different strategies that can work, but one of the easiest and most underutilized is simply posting the things that we and our audience enjoy.

In the example above, the city in which a car dealership resided had their local team playing for their playoff lives. Sunday was the day that would determine whether it was time to pack it up for the season or continue on into the playoffs. The post itself, a simple message, was put on Facebook the day before the game and promoted through Facebook ads. The results were very strong. It had over 100 likes, a handful of comments, and dozens of shares, the majority of which were done by locals to the area since the Facebook ads were extremely geo-targeted.

How will this help them sell more cars? First, it expresses the dealership's personality. They love their local team. It's not a marketing ploy - the owners and most of the employees are strong supporters of their football team. Second, it's a shared love - many of their customers and potential customers are fans. These two things are great from a PR and branding perspective but they don't answer the question of how this directly helps them sell more.

That answer is the algorithmic response. When a piece of content resonates and is widely liked and shared by the target audience, it dramatically improves the ability for the marketing messages that follow to be seen by the same people and their friends. Facebook's and Google+'s algorithms are designed to reward businesses and individuals who post popular content with more visibility. By working in the truly likable things within a business' market area into the overall social media mix, the marketing messages will see more exposure. One strategically placed and properly promoted "fun" or "inspiring" message followed by one or two marketing messages will have a dramatically higher reach than a flurry of marketing messages that are not set up by the fun pieces.

The easiest way to find the right content is to look inwards. What do you know? What do you like? What do you enjoy that your audience will enjoy as well? For local businesses, it's best to stay laser focused; don't jump on a movie's buzz bandwagon, for example, but stay in the realm of your business' expertise and/or the local area's interest.

As with so many pieces of advice that I've been giving lately, the moral of the story is that if you "keep it real" and deliver authentic messages that resonate within you, there's a good chance they'll resonate with your audience as well.

In business, we often look to social media as another venue through which to achieve our business goals. It's a marketing goldmine - at least that's what the experts are telling us. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the websites and apps that the people, our potential customers, are visiting, so putting out our marketing messages on these venues makes absolute sense.

The problem with that premise is that people aren't going to those sites to receive marketing. One can argue that the same is true for television and they would be right. Television is an extremely effective advertising platform for many despite the fact that most people don't like seeing advertisements. The real difference is choice. On television, radio, and other venues, we have the choice to change the channel but normally we sit through and watch the marketing in between our shows because we don't want to miss it when it comes back on. On social media, the messages are chosen. Those who are posting content that doesn't appeal can be easily unfollowed. In the case of Facebook, they can be blocked, removed from the news feed, unfollowed, and even reported as spam.

It's a paradox. How does a business achieve their goals on social media while maintaining a connection with the audience that prevents them from blocking us? There are several answers to this question and many different strategies that can work, but one of the easiest and most underutilized is simply posting the things that we and our audience enjoy.

In the example above, the city in which a car dealership resided had their local team playing for their playoff lives. Sunday was the day that would determine whether it was time to pack it up for the season or continue on into the playoffs. The post itself, a simple message, was put on Facebook the day before the game and promoted through Facebook ads. The results were very strong. It had over 100 likes, a handful of comments, and dozens of shares, the majority of which were done by locals to the area since the Facebook ads were extremely geo-targeted.

How will this help them sell more cars? First, it expresses the dealership's personality. They love their local team. It's not a marketing ploy - the owners and most of the employees are strong supporters of their football team. Second, it's a shared love - many of their customers and potential customers are fans. These two things are great from a PR and branding perspective but they don't answer the question of how this directly helps them sell more.

That answer is the algorithmic response. When a piece of content resonates and is widely liked and shared by the target audience, it dramatically improves the ability for the marketing messages that follow to be seen by the same people and their friends. Facebook's and Google+'s algorithms are designed to reward businesses and individuals who post popular content with more visibility. By working in the truly likable things within a business' market area into the overall social media mix, the marketing messages will see more exposure. One strategically placed and properly promoted "fun" or "inspiring" message followed by one or two marketing messages will have a dramatically higher reach than a flurry of marketing messages that are not set up by the fun pieces.

The easiest way to find the right content is to look inwards. What do you know? What do you like? What do you enjoy that your audience will enjoy as well? For local businesses, it's best to stay laser focused; don't jump on a movie's buzz bandwagon, for example, but stay in the realm of your business' expertise and/or the local area's interest.

As with so many pieces of advice that I've been giving lately, the moral of the story is that if you "keep it real" and deliver authentic messages that resonate within you, there's a good chance they'll resonate with your audience as well.

I knew it would happen sometime in 2013. I’m glad it happened sooner rather than later.

For a while, many of the smaller bloggers such as myself have been preaching about how search, social, and content marketing are all actually a singular activity that can be broken down into a proper repeatable process. There have been skeptics and naysayers, the majority of whom work in one of the three industries and would not profit by the consolidation of things. In other words, someone who is trained in SEO who only opens up Facebook to see pictures of little Timmy sliding into 3rd base would not benefit by the emergence of social signals into search rankings, so they choose to pretend like it doesn’t help (or in some cases, saying that it can actually hurt your rankings).

When an article by Jeff Bullas, a respected internet marketing expert, came across my feed this morning with the title, “6 Social Media Trends You Should Not Ignore in 2013“, I was hopeful that he would mention the convergence of the three disciplines and was extremely pleased when it was the top trend mentioned…

“Expect to see more content marketing tools, tactics and strategies that accept the fact that social, search and content are increasingly integrated and intertwined.”

Tools – perhaps. It’s challenging to put together a tool set that doesn’t spoil the mix. The reason for this is the need to focus on quality and value above all else. With tools, they have a tendency to automate processes that end up hurting in the long run. By mentioning tactics and strategies, I couldn’t agree more. As someone who wakes up at 2:30 every morning to read my feeds and stay on top of the ever-changing worlds of search and social, I am always hopeful to find more strategies that will enhance my current playbook.

As we plunge further into the year, there will be more and more articles written about the convergence. Some will be spot on. Others will be misleading as the natural tendency to convert everything into a template will send many down the wrong path. You need skill, creativity, and resources at your disposal, not tricks or schemes. Google, Facebook, and Bing are getting smarter every day. They’re learning how to recognize the difference between content that truly brings education, entertainment, or resource value to the table and the content that is churned or spun. If you read about a strategy that operates without expertise or the human factor of discernment, run away as fast as you can.

Think quality. It’s the point at which search engine optimization, social media promotions, and content marketing converge.

I knew it would happen sometime in 2013. I’m glad it happened sooner rather than later.

For a while, many of the smaller bloggers such as myself have been preaching about how search, social, and content marketing are all actually a singular activity that can be broken down into a proper repeatable process. There have been skeptics and naysayers, the majority of whom work in one of the three industries and would not profit by the consolidation of things. In other words, someone who is trained in SEO who only opens up Facebook to see pictures of little Timmy sliding into 3rd base would not benefit by the emergence of social signals into search rankings, so they choose to pretend like it doesn’t help (or in some cases, saying that it can actually hurt your rankings).

When an article by Jeff Bullas, a respected internet marketing expert, came across my feed this morning with the title, “6 Social Media Trends You Should Not Ignore in 2013“, I was hopeful that he would mention the convergence of the three disciplines and was extremely pleased when it was the top trend mentioned…

“Expect to see more content marketing tools, tactics and strategies that accept the fact that social, search and content are increasingly integrated and intertwined.”

Tools – perhaps. It’s challenging to put together a tool set that doesn’t spoil the mix. The reason for this is the need to focus on quality and value above all else. With tools, they have a tendency to automate processes that end up hurting in the long run. By mentioning tactics and strategies, I couldn’t agree more. As someone who wakes up at 2:30 every morning to read my feeds and stay on top of the ever-changing worlds of search and social, I am always hopeful to find more strategies that will enhance my current playbook.

As we plunge further into the year, there will be more and more articles written about the convergence. Some will be spot on. Others will be misleading as the natural tendency to convert everything into a template will send many down the wrong path. You need skill, creativity, and resources at your disposal, not tricks or schemes. Google, Facebook, and Bing are getting smarter every day. They’re learning how to recognize the difference between content that truly brings education, entertainment, or resource value to the table and the content that is churned or spun. If you read about a strategy that operates without expertise or the human factor of discernment, run away as fast as you can.

Think quality. It’s the point at which search engine optimization, social media promotions, and content marketing converge.

“Journalist” according to Wikipedia: “A journalist collects, writes and distributes news and other information. A journalist’s work is referred to as journalism.”

It’s important to understand what I mean when I use the word. Many people hear the word and think of a “reporter” since most people who call themselves journalists today follow the news reporting line of the art. With that understood, let’s get right into it…

Every company who wants to reach the highest level of success in online marketing going forward needs to have someone acting as a journalist for the company. They needs someone who collects, writers, and distributes news and other information about the company, the industry, the customers, the local area – anything that has relevance from a marketing perspective. This hasn’t always been the case. Until very recently, a good SEO content writer would suffice as long as they had some skills to put together a nice press release every now and then. SEO content was all that you really needed to succeed.

Today and going forward, that’s no longer the case. That’s not to say that you don’t need SEO content. In most cases, you do, at least when getting your site put together. If you’re in a competitive industry like automotive, you’ll want additional SEO content pages to be built regularly just to stay ahead of the competition. To truly push forward and start dominating on both the search engines and social media, you’ll want to apply some journalistic art to your website and blog.

You need a journalist.

It doesn’t have to be a full-time job. It could be someone at the company who can do it occasionally. It can be you. If you’re involved with marketing at the company, it’s a great skill to have. It doesn’t take a degree from OU’s School of Journalism to get the job done. It just takes understanding your industry, a touch of creativity and brainstorming abilities, an eye for good content, and a willingness to stick to it.

No, a Content Writing Service Won’t Work

There are plenty of very strong and useful content writing services out there. Some of them put out great work. Most are mediocre, but even that’s okay as long as you can edit it a bit before publishing. The problem with these services is that they’re designed specifically to build SEO content. They rarely put out content that is worth reading and sharing which is the goal of your company journalist.

More importantly, they aren’t at your store. They aren’t there meeting and talking to customers. They aren’t shooting the breeze with the guy in accounting or participating in the March of Dimes walk like the girl in the service department. This is where the journalist comes in and it is hard (impossible?) to outsource.

The Journalist’s Role

The goal is to put out content that helps in four major areas:

1. Search Rankings – Google and Bing need SEO content on the site to let them know the proper purpose of each individual page, but they love real content that people are willing to read and share. They can tell the difference between content that is meant for them and content that is truly meant to entertain or inform your visitors. This type of journalistic content can propel your other content to the top in ways that SEO content alone simply cannot do.
2. Social Sharing – Nobody is going to share your specials page. They’re not going to share a piece of content written by an SEO content writer titled “Chevrolet Dealer Serving Madison Proud of Award Winning Models”. This content has its place, but it’s not going to find its way on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+ without some artificial inflation (which Google and Bing can smell from a mile away). What people will share is a piece of content at the same dealership titled “Everything We Know About the 2014 Corvette is Mind Blowing”. An outsourced content writer might be able to put out something decent, but then it won’t have the flair that your business demands. Make it special. Use a journalist. Be a journalist. If you know you’re industry, you can do it.
3. Public Relations – Again, it takes someone at the store to take pictures and videos when you sponsor the local Social Media Saturday meetup. Yes, there are plenty of press release services out there that do a nice job, but they can’t put out the real content that is replacing the canned content that goes into press releases. Real people don’t read PRWeb. Real people won’t find the content that gets syndicated to Yahoo News except for the few weeks that it ranks well in Google. Blog and website content that sticks, that’s already associated with the company, and that you’ll have some measure of control over forever – that’s the place where real public relations starts in 2013? Why? See reason #2. Social media is the new public relations driving force, not press releases.
4. Humanized Businesses – Today more than ever, people want to deal with other people. The business atmosphere is loaded with automated telephone service, autoresponder emails, and vanilla content that nobody reads. By adding the human flair of a journalist at the store posting pictures, videos, and stories at the store, on the blog, and across social media, you’ll be able to highlight the human factor that people consciously or unconsciously crave. They may not know why they prefer to do business with you, but after the transaction is complete it won’t matter. Now it’s time to keep them happy through ongoing service – a different topic altogether. You have to get them in the door, first. Humanizing your business is a step in the right direction for both you and your customers.

One of the most important parts of good journalism is to keep it as short as possible. On a topic like this, 1000 words simply won’t be enough, so proper journalist standards says that I need to break this up into parts. Part II of The Company Journalist Series will cover how to pick the right topics and give examples of what you should be posting on your site and blog to start building your content marketing goldmine.

“Journalist” according to Wikipedia: “A journalist collects, writes and distributes news and other information. A journalist’s work is referred to as journalism.”

It’s important to understand what I mean when I use the word. Many people hear the word and think of a “reporter” since most people who call themselves journalists today follow the news reporting line of the art. With that understood, let’s get right into it…

Every company who wants to reach the highest level of success in online marketing going forward needs to have someone acting as a journalist for the company. They needs someone who collects, writers, and distributes news and other information about the company, the industry, the customers, the local area – anything that has relevance from a marketing perspective. This hasn’t always been the case. Until very recently, a good SEO content writer would suffice as long as they had some skills to put together a nice press release every now and then. SEO content was all that you really needed to succeed.

Today and going forward, that’s no longer the case. That’s not to say that you don’t need SEO content. In most cases, you do, at least when getting your site put together. If you’re in a competitive industry like automotive, you’ll want additional SEO content pages to be built regularly just to stay ahead of the competition. To truly push forward and start dominating on both the search engines and social media, you’ll want to apply some journalistic art to your website and blog.

You need a journalist.

It doesn’t have to be a full-time job. It could be someone at the company who can do it occasionally. It can be you. If you’re involved with marketing at the company, it’s a great skill to have. It doesn’t take a degree from OU’s School of Journalism to get the job done. It just takes understanding your industry, a touch of creativity and brainstorming abilities, an eye for good content, and a willingness to stick to it.

No, a Content Writing Service Won’t Work

There are plenty of very strong and useful content writing services out there. Some of them put out great work. Most are mediocre, but even that’s okay as long as you can edit it a bit before publishing. The problem with these services is that they’re designed specifically to build SEO content. They rarely put out content that is worth reading and sharing which is the goal of your company journalist.

More importantly, they aren’t at your store. They aren’t there meeting and talking to customers. They aren’t shooting the breeze with the guy in accounting or participating in the March of Dimes walk like the girl in the service department. This is where the journalist comes in and it is hard (impossible?) to outsource.

The Journalist’s Role

The goal is to put out content that helps in four major areas:

1. Search Rankings – Google and Bing need SEO content on the site to let them know the proper purpose of each individual page, but they love real content that people are willing to read and share. They can tell the difference between content that is meant for them and content that is truly meant to entertain or inform your visitors. This type of journalistic content can propel your other content to the top in ways that SEO content alone simply cannot do.
2. Social Sharing – Nobody is going to share your specials page. They’re not going to share a piece of content written by an SEO content writer titled “Chevrolet Dealer Serving Madison Proud of Award Winning Models”. This content has its place, but it’s not going to find its way on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+ without some artificial inflation (which Google and Bing can smell from a mile away). What people will share is a piece of content at the same dealership titled “Everything We Know About the 2014 Corvette is Mind Blowing”. An outsourced content writer might be able to put out something decent, but then it won’t have the flair that your business demands. Make it special. Use a journalist. Be a journalist. If you know you’re industry, you can do it.
3. Public Relations – Again, it takes someone at the store to take pictures and videos when you sponsor the local Social Media Saturday meetup. Yes, there are plenty of press release services out there that do a nice job, but they can’t put out the real content that is replacing the canned content that goes into press releases. Real people don’t read PRWeb. Real people won’t find the content that gets syndicated to Yahoo News except for the few weeks that it ranks well in Google. Blog and website content that sticks, that’s already associated with the company, and that you’ll have some measure of control over forever – that’s the place where real public relations starts in 2013? Why? See reason #2. Social media is the new public relations driving force, not press releases.
4. Humanized Businesses – Today more than ever, people want to deal with other people. The business atmosphere is loaded with automated telephone service, autoresponder emails, and vanilla content that nobody reads. By adding the human flair of a journalist at the store posting pictures, videos, and stories at the store, on the blog, and across social media, you’ll be able to highlight the human factor that people consciously or unconsciously crave. They may not know why they prefer to do business with you, but after the transaction is complete it won’t matter. Now it’s time to keep them happy through ongoing service – a different topic altogether. You have to get them in the door, first. Humanizing your business is a step in the right direction for both you and your customers.

One of the most important parts of good journalism is to keep it as short as possible. On a topic like this, 1000 words simply won’t be enough, so proper journalist standards says that I need to break this up into parts. Part II of The Company Journalist Series will cover how to pick the right topics and give examples of what you should be posting on your site and blog to start building your content marketing goldmine.

A new year represents beginnings. It is a time to reflect on what was missed and make plans for improvement. This year is going to be a crucial one for many businesses with uncertainty in the economy, fluctuation in the social media sphere, and an awakening that is happening for many that social media is here to stay and is something that they need to master.

Competition is getting stronger thanks to this awakening. It’s no longer an option to try out social media. The test drive phase is over. Either you’re in or you’re out. If you’re in, here are some things that you should strive to accomplish in 2013 that will make your social media strategy shine above the competitors:

1. Get on the Google+ bandwagon before it becomes a bandwagon – In 2011, I said that Google+ had potential. In 2012, it started showing signs of having influence over searches, placement of reviews in the local section, and an increased engagement level on the social networking component itself. In 2013, it will go from an option to a “must have”. We saw this sort of necessity budding with Facebook in 2008 and Twitter in 2009. Google+ is different because it’s accelerating faster than any of its predecessors. Get going now or you may fall terribly behind.
2. Make quality content the highest goal for website improvement – We’ve discussed it several times over the last few months and we’ll continue to discuss it for as long as it remains important. High-quality content is the key to both search and social more than it has even been in the past. Unique, important, entertaining, and informational content that can get the inbound links and social shares to your website can be your secret weapon in 2013.
3. Consolidate your social media posting strategies – This is a challenging one to discuss and deserves its own blog post in the near future. There’s a difference between posting the exact same content to all of your social profiles and pages at the same time and consolidating the strategies in a way that will make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not that you will cross-post everything you have. It’s that you’ll want to make sure that everything from website content to Facebook posts to Pinterest pins are pointing in the same strategic direction.
4. Get visual – The written word is harder to promote than the visual message. All of the major social networks love images. Most hate links. That doesn’t mean that you can’t try to make links a part of the message, but all too often it’s the only part. This has to change in 2013.
5. Post higher quality instead of more often – If given the choice between crafting and promoting a single piece of content on Facebook and Google+ that truly resonates with the communities or posting a lot of good but not great content, I’ll take the former every time. Your posts have to pop or they’ll go nowhere.
6. Grow your targeted following ONLY - There was a time when it was okay to get a boost on followers by targeting the whole world. It’s easier to get local followers to a big account than one that is tiny. Things have changed, though, and now it can actually damage the effectiveness of your accounts by being too large with untargeted followers. Tighten it up, prune when necessary, and stop trying to inflate your numbers.
7. Build a true personality with your social profiles and stick with it – This is not a call to become the cat-picture poster of Facebook. There are plenty of those. It’s a call for businesses to personalize, to make sure that there is humanity within their social media posts. It could be regular promotions of a local charity, funny videos made by the business that can quickly become “a thing”, or just staying business-focused but with a real person expressing real ideas and offering real advice in their industry.

It’s hard to limit this list to 7. I actually had to cut off three of the tips I was going to give because they were too hard to try to fit into a list; they deserve individual blog posts of their own.

There are so many other things that businesses should do in 2013 to make their social media shine like never before, but it’s better to start with a handful of achievable goals rather than be flustered by the failure of taking on too much at once. If you do these things, you’ll get better this year.

Thankfully, nothing on the list is that hard.

A new year represents beginnings. It is a time to reflect on what was missed and make plans for improvement. This year is going to be a crucial one for many businesses with uncertainty in the economy, fluctuation in the social media sphere, and an awakening that is happening for many that social media is here to stay and is something that they need to master.

Competition is getting stronger thanks to this awakening. It’s no longer an option to try out social media. The test drive phase is over. Either you’re in or you’re out. If you’re in, here are some things that you should strive to accomplish in 2013 that will make your social media strategy shine above the competitors:

1. Get on the Google+ bandwagon before it becomes a bandwagon – In 2011, I said that Google+ had potential. In 2012, it started showing signs of having influence over searches, placement of reviews in the local section, and an increased engagement level on the social networking component itself. In 2013, it will go from an option to a “must have”. We saw this sort of necessity budding with Facebook in 2008 and Twitter in 2009. Google+ is different because it’s accelerating faster than any of its predecessors. Get going now or you may fall terribly behind.
2. Make quality content the highest goal for website improvement – We’ve discussed it several times over the last few months and we’ll continue to discuss it for as long as it remains important. High-quality content is the key to both search and social more than it has even been in the past. Unique, important, entertaining, and informational content that can get the inbound links and social shares to your website can be your secret weapon in 2013.
3. Consolidate your social media posting strategies – This is a challenging one to discuss and deserves its own blog post in the near future. There’s a difference between posting the exact same content to all of your social profiles and pages at the same time and consolidating the strategies in a way that will make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not that you will cross-post everything you have. It’s that you’ll want to make sure that everything from website content to Facebook posts to Pinterest pins are pointing in the same strategic direction.
4. Get visual – The written word is harder to promote than the visual message. All of the major social networks love images. Most hate links. That doesn’t mean that you can’t try to make links a part of the message, but all too often it’s the only part. This has to change in 2013.
5. Post higher quality instead of more often – If given the choice between crafting and promoting a single piece of content on Facebook and Google+ that truly resonates with the communities or posting a lot of good but not great content, I’ll take the former every time. Your posts have to pop or they’ll go nowhere.
6. Grow your targeted following ONLY - There was a time when it was okay to get a boost on followers by targeting the whole world. It’s easier to get local followers to a big account than one that is tiny. Things have changed, though, and now it can actually damage the effectiveness of your accounts by being too large with untargeted followers. Tighten it up, prune when necessary, and stop trying to inflate your numbers.
7. Build a true personality with your social profiles and stick with it – This is not a call to become the cat-picture poster of Facebook. There are plenty of those. It’s a call for businesses to personalize, to make sure that there is humanity within their social media posts. It could be regular promotions of a local charity, funny videos made by the business that can quickly become “a thing”, or just staying business-focused but with a real person expressing real ideas and offering real advice in their industry.

It’s hard to limit this list to 7. I actually had to cut off three of the tips I was going to give because they were too hard to try to fit into a list; they deserve individual blog posts of their own.

There are so many other things that businesses should do in 2013 to make their social media shine like never before, but it’s better to start with a handful of achievable goals rather than be flustered by the failure of taking on too much at once. If you do these things, you’ll get better this year.

Thankfully, nothing on the list is that hard.

The automation of Twitter for businesses continues to become the norm. As microblogging, interaction, and expression get replaced by RSS feeds, Facebook feeds, and post scheduling that is all dominated by links, links, and more links, the power of Twitter is being replaced by the easy alternatives to actually, well, using the service.

This is a huge mistake for most. There are some who are simply overwhelmed by social media and internet marketing in general and anything that they can check off their list with minimal or zero effort is a good thing. For those who actually want to find success on Twitter, it’s not going to work with zero effort. Thankfully, Twitter is a platform that can work very well with minimal effort. There has to be some, just not a ton.

Post fewer links

When I first stared using Twitter over five years ago, the site was loaded with communication. Links were in fewer than 20% of the Tweets in my feeds. It was mostly about, “look at what I’m doing here” or “I really like pickles”. Now, links dominate Tweets. For news sources and other publications, this is fine. For super-active accounts that talk to people regularly, this is fine. For businesses who are not super-popular on social media, links should be used sparingly.

Again, it comes down to time. If you simply don’t have the time to come up with 3 or 4 good, solid unlinked Tweets, interactions with everyone who reaches out to you, and proactive interactions with new people the way a proper Twitter strategy should look, then getting something out there on a regular basis is better than going completely stagnant. The effectiveness of the “bail out” strategy is minimal, but if it’s all that you can afford from a time perspective, so be it.

It’s it’s at all possible to tone down the links and get truly engaging with your posts, you’ll get much more out of the service for your business.

Talk to people

It would have been hard to imagine in the days when I was first getting started on Twitter that there would be a need to give this advice, but that need is here. Twitter is first and foremost a communication tool. Most businesses are using it strictly for broadcasting. The paradox that many fail to understand is that if you talk about yourself less and talk about others more, your messages about yourself will reach a greater number of people. In many ways, it’s about earning the right to broadcast.

Those who use Twitter regularly can smell a feed-driven Twitter account in seconds. They can tell when an account is strictly being used to broadcast and when it’s truly being used for communication. When someone is strictly broadcasting, they better be a publication like Mashable or a celebrity like Oprah Winfrey or the message simply won’t be heard.

Here are some quick ways to establish that you’re communicating on Twitter rather than broadcasting:

1. Send @replies – If you’re a standard business account that is getting a handful of interactions directed at you per day, reply to all of them. If you’re more popular, reply to the ones that are personalized. In other words, no need to reply to retweets unless the sender added their two cents to the conversation.
2. Retweet often – A decent account should retweet 5+ times a day. A more active account can get away with fewer but should be retweeting at least once a day. This isn’t the “RT @0boy…” style, though those should be worked in as well. These are the direct retweets by pushing the retweet button directly from Twitter. This is important because it adds different avatars to your stream. When visitors see that you’re retweeting others, they’ll be more likely to assume that you’re actually listening to the outside world rather than working inside your own little Twitter broadcasting box.
3. Start or join conversations – You’re an expert in your industry. You can chime in on conversations that are happening regarding your industry, your local area, or even the world in general. That doesn’t mean that you should butt in and start spreading your wisdom in one-on-one conversations, but it does mean responding to people’s Tweets or even starting the conversation with them directly. You can see in their Twitter streams whether they’re replying to people or not. Be sure that if you start a conversation, it’s with someone who will reply back to you.
4. Split your times up – This is all very easy stuff, but doing it all in one block per day isn’t the best way to do it. It’s better than nothing, but the preferred method would be to do it at least twice a day. A best practice is to do it first thing in the morning when you’re done checking your morning emails and then again shortly after lunch. You don’t want to do it at the end of the day unless you’ll be checking your stream from home in the evening because you’ll want to be timely with your responses when people engage back at you.

Once you’ve established that you communicate properly through Twitter, you’ll have room to post occasional self-serving links. If all you post is links, your message will get lost in the mix.

Post pictures and unlinked text

Twitter has a great filter feature for mobile images. Use it. Before we recommended Instagram but that didn’t work out so well, so Tweeting images directly through the Twitter mobile app works great.

If you use Buffer or any of the other posting tools that upload images directly to Twitter (Hootsuite doesn’t do this, FYI), scheduling images through a PC is another way to get your feed flowing with engaging content. It’s not as good as mobile uploads as people love to see real pictures taken by real people associated with the business, but it’s definitely better than nothing.

Text posts are great as well. They can be sayings, quotes, opinions, or anything that has nothing other than possibly hashtags linking out from the Tweet. This is particularly useful when posting about local area events and asking questions. One note: if you do ask questions designed to get a response from your followers, be sure that you’re available to respond to their answers. Don’t drop a question in the queue and walk away. Again, timeliness is important, even for a business Twitter account.

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Twitter is the one component of social media strategies that has been botched by most over the years. It’s hard to get real followers. It’s harder to get real engagement. It can, however, prove to be extremely useful if you put the effort into it. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, the effort that’s required to take a Twitter account from decent to great really isn’t that much. It’s for this reason that if you have a little extra time every day, Twitter is a good investment of it.