What the hell am I supposed to write about, I own a {insert your small business here}?

Really, who cares about your flower shop, bike shop, auto parts store, or coffee house?

Answer: Your customers certainly care.

We all know by now that consistent small business blogging can drastically improve yourSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) and overall web presence. Additionally, a small business blog can increase your opportunities to interact with (and highlight) your customers and provide an additional occasion for you to share your expert knowledge.

Unfortunately, nothing stops a would be small business blogger faster than a perceivedlack of time, and the frustration that comes with a lack of ideas to blog about.

While I can’t help you with your time issue, I can provide you with nine tips for creating more small business blogging ideas:

1. Keyword Tool

One of the best semi-secret sources of the more savvy small business bloggers are the free keyword tools that are available like Google Adwords and Wordtracker. If you are not familiar with searching for keywords, essentially you type in a word or phrase related to your small business and the tool shows you what people (your potential customers) are searching the internet for. You can easily get hundreds of new blog post ideas from a couple of keyword searches.

2. Your Backstory

Potential customers want to know about you and your business, it’s a cornerstone of trust building. One of the best ways to familiarize your customers with your business is to blog about your backstory and personal history. Backstory topics could include any of the following:

• Who you are?
• Where did you come from?
• Why did you choose your business location?
• What is it that makes you passionate about your small business?
• What have you done in your life that makes you unique?
• What struggles have led to the creation of who you are today as a business owner.

3. Customer of the Day

Presumably, if you are running a semi-successful business, you have customers coming in on a daily basis. If you are struggling for post ideas, why not make your customers the focus of your blog one or two days per week?

Not only will you get almost unlimited post material, but since customers like to feel special and appreciated, blogging about them is a great public relations tool. You could even give the participants an additional ten percent off of their purchase for their willingness to participate. Featuring your customers and telling their story gets them excited about your business and can help to establish a customer based community around your blog.

4. Create Resource Posts

Resource posts are great because they are fairly easy for you to put together and people love to read scannable and easily digested information. Ideas for small business resource posts might include:

• Top ten selling products in your store and why.
• Five reasons you love your business
• Twenty best ways to {insert business specific information here}.
• Eight reasons why customers loveÖ

5. Answer Customer Questions

Your customers have questions and you have expert knowledge. Do not take yourknowledge for granted. If there is a specific set of questions that customers seem to ask on a daily basis then turn those queries into individual blog posts.

6. Tutorials

Similar to answering questions, tutorial posts that are specific to your industry (e.g. teaching customers how to change a flat tire, make better coffee, repair their fishing rod, etc.) might be a common task for you, but could really provide value your customers. One simple way to liven up tutorial posts is to add video or photo which can help enhance your instructions.

7. Mind Mapping

If you are not familiar with mind mapping, you can read Darren’s terrific mind mapping articles here, here, and here.

To create small business blog post ideas with mind mapping, draw a square in the center of a piece of paper and write the name of your business in the square. Begin jotting down ideas as you work out from the center. Do not stop to think, over analyze, and critique just get your ideas down on paper and you can refine them later.

8. Comparison Post

Take two similar items in your business and do a side by side comparison of the benefits, cost savings, and overall value of each. Own a bike shop, why would I buy a Cannondale over a Trek? Or, own a flower shop, what are the similarities and differences between roses and sunflowers?

9. Day in the Life

Many small business owners find it difficult to write about themselves. But your daily activities are truly unique and blog post worthy.

• What is a day, a week, or a even a month in your small business life like?
• Do you get up at 5:00a.m. and work until 10:00p.m.?
• What are you doing during the workday at your small business?

10. Your Suggestions

We have gotten you to nine tips for creating more small business blog posts and now it’s your turn to help get us to 10, 11, 12…. 100 suggestions. What are your tips for creating small business blogging ideas?

Mark Hayward hates the snow and cold! Luckily, he owns a small business in theCaribbean. Mark is passionate about helping other small business owners avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

More time online

A new poll released today by Harris Interactivereveals that adult internet users now average 13 hour per week online (which makes me personally anything but average, as you would guess). They found that 20% of adult web users are on for two hours or less each week while 14% spend 24+ hours online weekly.

From 1999-2002, the average hours spent online weekly was seven hours, then in 2003-2006 it bumped to between eight and nine hours, then in 2007 it jumped to 11 hours and now we’re averaging 13 hours weekly. I don’t know what the questionnaire asked specifically, but I wonder if people using the web on their cell phones were counted?

As a marketer, you should know that although people like me who spend at least 13 hours online eachday, most consumers are spending that much in a week, meaning the window of opportunity to grab their attention for the specific task they are online to perform is very small, so make it punchy!

Guess who spends the most time online of all adults? It’s not the twenty somethings, it’s those aged 30-39 who spend 18 hours online each week and 62% of that same age group purchased something online last month.

80% of adults in America are now online either from work, home, or school which hasn’t changed much since 2008 despite the shift in the time invested online, although the number of those using the web from home has jumped up 10% since 2005.

Why all these changes?

As technology becomes easier to use and less expensive, it permeates more markets. Speculators blame the recession for the increase in time online, stating that it’s cheaper to play online that it is to go to a movie or spend time out (although I speculate it’s not about the recession, it’s about a natural technology adaptation shift). Other technologies are rapidly being adopted like smart phones, more advanced televisions, GPS systems and the like that would make some frown confusedly just 10 years ago.

I suspect this amount of time will begin spiking in the next 24 months as people begin using mobile based applications more and more, I mean even my grandma knows what an iPhone “app” is now, so the web will soon be like the Macarena- everyone will know what it is, some will hail it, others will poo poo it, but regardless, we’ll continue investing our time in it as it currently has infinite possibilities.

http://agentgenius.com/real-estate-coaching-tutorials/tech/new-poll-shows-shift-in-amount-of-time-spent-on-the-internet/

Twitter history documenting tool

While some social media gurus will tell you to jump into social media, get a feel for it and adapt, we encourage seeking out and implementing tools that track your use because we’re not here to play, we’re here to do business. Instead of talking about how to use Twitter to farm your local market (hint: follow locals, not 20,000 agents), we want to talk about using a new Twitter tool for business because you can’t measure ROI if you don’t know what in the world your “I” is. Links you share on Twitter should be backed by analytics as importantly as your Twitter usage should be documented and backed up separate from Twitter.com.

Enter Twistory, whose tagline is “twitter + history and that’s really it.” Without even logging into Twitter, add your Twitter activity (not including direct messages) to most web calendars like Google Calendar and iCal. I will note, however, that it took quite some time for it to begin loading to my calendar and it only updates one or two times per day as I can tell, so be patient.

Why you should document

There are endless reasons you should document Twitter history, but here are a few:

• Depending on the laws in your state, you are required to keep record of all of your communications with clients from the very moment you make contact. In today’s world, if that contact occurs on Twitter, you should have record of said event. Some states require you to keep communications regarding a real estate transaction for five years, some up to ten. This is the most critical use of Twistory for your business.
• Some brokerages or agents have their administrators managing some or all of their online presence. If my admin is tweeting as the brokerage, you’re darn tootin’ I want to easily see what all is going on at the front desk. I prefer to see at a glance in a documentable way what anyone on staff is doing with company resources, you?
• Making your twitter history searchable is como se dice, awesome. Well, it’s useful. Perhaps you don’t recall something you said publicly or you need to compile a list of all of the times you mentioned a subdivision in comparison with your hyperlocal subdivision blog’s traffic. There are endless reasons you may want to refer to your history, but it is a function that is critical for business (to be able to reference your communications).
• Because you don’t have to sign in to a Twitter account, you can subscribe to multiple feeds and color code them on your web calendar. So, if you want to track and document your history as a broker, alongside your agents, you can do so. If you want to log your competitors so you can study their use of Twitter. Think about it- without having to sit on Twitter all day and watch, you can have a searchable log of any Twitter user. Talk about trend watching!

Twistory is great for remaining in compliance, tracking use and adding a search function to your (and others’) Twitter history. There are many more ways this tool can be used in a real estate business, let us know in comments how you could use Twistory!

http://agentgenius.com/real-estate-technology-new-media/using-twitter-for-real-estate-business-new-web-tool/

Facebook may be the single greatest tool for Realtors – period.

Still not sure how to use Facebook for your real estate business …

… We get this from Realtors all the time!  No worries, we have put together the below list of some of the top Facebook apps to help you get the most out of Facebook. 

Each one serves a different purpose, marketing, productivity, traffic analytics, branding and overall client relationship management.  When you put it all together you will see that you have a pretty complete marketing plan.

The key to success for Realtors is in the Implementation & Follow Through!

Facebook Fan Pages

Facebook fan pages may be the most under valued tool available, don’t let this be true for you.  Think of your Facebook “business” Page as your online office or central command center.  It is much easier to get your prospects and clients to become a “FAN” than it is to get them into your “brick-n-mortar” office.

Once people have become a FAN of your Facebook page you must engage them with conversation!  But how do you do this?

Some simple ways to engage your fans:

• Send them a direct message to say Thank You for becoming a Fan
• Comment on their status updates,
• Wish them a Happy Bday on that special day

Another great reason to use a Facebook page for your real estate business is, you can easily send your fans a message.  Maybe you have a new listing, a price reduction, a new product launch, etc…

Facebook Notes & Tagging

I am just beginning to use these features, to be honest I am a little late to the game on this one.  Oh well, “better late than never” as the saying goes. 

So what is Facebook Notes & Tagging and how do you use it effectively to gain more business?

In a nutshell … you write a note or import a post from your blog, tag up to 30 of your Facebook friends in hopes they will comment.  The goal is simple, to engage your audience (friends).  If your note or blog post is not relevant or interesting people will not respond.  This idea comes from the whole “chain letter” philosphy.  When done correctly, it does work well..

Why do you want your friends to comment on your note … Each comment builds social proof that you know what you are talking about.  The more social proof you have, the more trust and authority you will have among your audience.

To Do List

Like I said earlier, Facebook may be the single best tool available for Realtors in today’s business environment; and this app is just one small indication that I may be right.

Facebook apps like the To Do List could be making it the worlds largest CRM system.  The ToDo list helps you organize all of the tasks you have to do, calls to make, faxes to send, etc…  It allows you to create different lists: personal, business, etc…

Check it out and let us know your how you like it.

Files

Successful Realtors understand the need for collaboration … With Facebook Files application you can now collaborate with the best of them.  Access your files from anywhere and share important work files, photos, and music with your friends using the Facebook Files application, powered by Box.net. Facebook Files is like a virtual thumbdrive that is always within reach and impossible to lose!

You can register with Box.net for free to get 1GB of storage space.

If you would like more space, feel free to upgrade and gain other benefits such as additional collaboration folders.

Facebook Events

Facebook Events is an incredibly easy and effective way to market just about any event you may be hosting. 

Think about it, no 3rd party site to manage, all of your contacts are already on Facebook (to the tune of 300 Million and growing), it tracks every invite sent out, response received and even let’s your invitees share on their wall.

Click for more info on Creating your next Facebook event

Insights

Ever wonder who all of your Facebook fans are and what value they see in your Facebook page?  Sure you do.  Well that is exactly the kind of stuff you can learn from reviewing the Insights provided to you with your page. 

You can quickly see things like:

• How many fans have been active on your page this week
• Demographics of your fan base: male/female, age, etc…
• Post Quality
• Interactions per post
• Total / Unsubscribed Fans

Learn more abour Facebook fan pages here.

Facebook Advertising

If you have been in the real estate business more than a few months, you have most likely experimented with Direct Mail or Print Ads and if you were smart you incorporated the 800# with recorded messages so that you could track-n-measure your results.

So you know how costly and time consuming this can be, not to mention how poor the results are.  Well with Facebook you can actually target your ads so that only your target audience sees your ad. 

The great thing is that they see other ads as well, so they don’t see you as that pesty Realtor who is always sending them junk mail with their ugly mug on the cover.

Let’s say you work with first time home buyers and your target audience is school teachers.  Facebook allows you to target your advertising so that only those who work in the school systems you select will see your ad. 

Or maybe you want to target Doctors … just target your ad so that only those who work for the hospitals in your area will see your ad.

Facebook advertising can be paid for by:

1. Pay per click
2. Pay per impression

My thought is to pay per click since you get the benefit of impressions but pay for only clicks!

Facebook FBML

This is a must have application!  Basically this app lets you write basic HTML into your facebook page.  HTML allows you to customize your Facebook page so that it looks more like a website. Another cool benefit of using the FBML app is that you can use it to embed lead capture forms. 

Here are some cool examples of how you can customize your Facebook page using FBML:

• Web Real Estate Tools
• The GoodLife Team
• The Official Realtor Referral Group

Check out our page at www.facebook.com/webrealestatetools and sign up for our FREE Email Course, it will help you understand how you might want to incorporate it into your site.

http://webrealestatetools.com/real-estate-tools/facebook-applications-for-realtors

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

We’ve already talked about using RSS as a business intelligence tool, but how do you choose the right software to get maximum benefit out of your news reading? With a number of options and myriad features on multiple platforms, it can be a daunting task to even get started.

In this article we’ll take a look at some of what you might consider when shopping for a news reader. Do you need cutting edge, up to the second information at your fingertips? You might want to look at “ticker” style applications that scroll new headlines continuously. Or maybe you need to monitor a large number of feeds but are primarily interested in a subset of specific keywords or topics. In that case, you’d want to look for an RSS reader that supports a Smart Folders or Saved Searches feature.

If you need to keep news feeds in sync across multiple platforms, from Mac to Windows or from the web to a desktop or mobile clients, there are solutions out there for you too. Many of these readers also help you share individual articles and posts with your colleagues and collaborators as well. Let’s take a look at some of the options available online, on your desktop and on your phone.

Online

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The reigning king of online newsreaders is currently Google Reader. One of the advantages of an online RSS reader over a desktop version is accessibility: you can use it from any web browser, even if it’s not your primary computer, and all your feeds will be exactly the way you left them. Of course, one of the disadvantages of a web-based newsreader is that you typically need an active internet connection to make use of them, whereas a desktop client can download feed items you can later read offline.

One of the areas Google Reader excels, however, is in its ability to also sync with various desktop and mobile clients. Not only does that give you some measure of offline access to your feeds (as does installing and enabling Google Gears), but it prevents you from having to sort through some of the feeds you’ve already read elsewhere when you switch from your computer to your phone, or even from web to desktop client. We’ll look at some of the desktop and mobile clients Google Reader syncs with in the next two sections.

Another potential option in this category is NetVibes. Though it’s officially classified as a Start Page moreso than an RSS reader, it can import and monitor news feeds along with a number of other apps or widgets designed to bring various types of information into one at-a-glance interface. NetVibes offers far more flexibility and customizability than a straight up RSS reader, but the downside is it’s not the best solution to monitoring a large volume of feeds. Google also has a similar product dubbed iGoogle worth checking out as well.

Desktop

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If keeping news feeds in sync between a Macintosh and a Windows computer is part of your requirements, you’ll want to take a look at two industry-leading news readers on their respective platforms: NetNewsWire andFeedDemon. Both of these readers sync with Google Reader, making cross-platform feed reading a lot more painless. Even if you don’t need cross-platform compatibility, both readers are full-featured and worthy contenders for your desktop feed reading needs. Both offer the ability to watch for specific keywords or set up saved searches that automatically bring up important topics in your niche to the forefront of your news reading sessions.

Another worthy option on the Mac is Shrook a free RSS reader that syncs back to the web to keep your feeds in line whether you’re reading from your Mac, iPhone, or any computer with an internet connection. On Windows, take a look at the free and open source RSSOwl.

For a news ticker type experience on either the Mac or PC, check out Snackr, an Adobe AIR client that continually scrolls headlines from your feeds across your desktop. This type of news reader can be handy for those who want to be able to see stories at a glance without having to switch back and forth between applications or browser tabs.

Mobile

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On the iPhone, Reeder is a solid mobile client that syncs with Google Reader. Newsstand is another iPhone client that does so, along with the ability to easily export or send stories to a number of external sources like email, Twitter, delicious and more. There’s also a special iPhone-formatted version of Google Reader you can simply use in the Safari mobile browser that works quite well.

On the Android platform, FeedR is a great option for reading feeds, with a free demo version and a reasonable $0.99 version that removes certain intermediary dialog boxes. You can import feeds from an OPML file and even cache feeds for offline reading as well. For a solid client that syncs with Google Reader, check out NewsRob.

Palm webOS users might want to see if the iPhone-formatted Google Reader works for your needs; it’s not specifically customized for Palm devices yet still tends to work rather well. BlackBerry users can also access Google Reader in the phone browser, or check out FreeRange or Viigo. Windows Mobile users can also use the browser method to access Google Reader, or try the free NewsBreak Lite or YoMoMedia, which syncs with its own web-based feed reading client as well.

Shop Around

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Don’t hesitate to spend some time shopping around and trying several clients before settling on your feed reader of choice — or even continuing to use more than one at a time. Thanks to the OPML standard, it should be a relatively simple process to export and import your feeds from one client to another. This means that building a master list of news feeds in one client is highly worthwhile, since it can travel with you even if you move to a new RSS reader down the road.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, angelhell

http://mashable.com/2009/12/03/news-reader

On Twitter, you have 140 characters to play with. Most people stick to the 26 letters, 10 numbers, half a dozen punctuation marks and currency signs. Fact is, underneath your fingers there are a treasure trove of characters to make your tweets more interesting, shorter & more colourful. By making your tweets stand out, you will get more people actively reading them because subconsciously your eyes are drawn to them. If your tweets are useful (and I’ve no reason to doubt why they should be), you should end up with more clicks on links, more retweets and generally more twitter love.

Here’s a few of my favourite special characters that I like to put in Tweets.

I explain how to get them on the most common form of keyboards – the US Keyboard Layout (which is used by the most of the western world). If different, I will also include the UK keycode, between them that should cover most of the keyboards in English speaking countries, but if English isn’t your native language, these may be different. The characters are there, but you’ll have to dig to find them.

1. The Ampersand
How To Get It: Press Shift + 7
When Should You Use It?
This character is very simple, as it shortens the word “and” to 1 character, saving yourself two characters in the process.

2. The “At” Sign
How To Get It: UK Keyboards – Shift+’
US Keyboards – Shift+2
When You Should Use It?
Used all the time in emails, the @ sign can also be used for events (for example, the show begins @ 7pm). Saving yourself one character in the process.

3. The Asterix
How to Get It: Press Shift + 8
When You Should Use It?
This is one I use all the time for emotions, verbs, basically what I am doing. If I’m writing **smiles and nods**, I’m smiling and nodding. This is great in conveying how I feel about things, as well as emotions that are difficult to convey such as sarcasm.

4. The Music Symbol (Joined Quavers)
How to Get It: Hold Alt & Type 14
When You Should Use It?
I’ve begun seeing this more and more when people are talking about music & songs they are listening to, particularly when using services such as Last.fm & Spotify. Often people will post music recommendations, followed with joined quavers, to show that it’s a musical link.
It’s a great idea to do this, as it can be a text based warning to users, by saying “this link is a Spotify link, so a song will automatically play when opened”. This’ll stop users opening music links when they really shouldn’t be.

5. Hearts
How to get it: Hold Alt & Type 3
When You Should Use It?
The obvious place is by sharing a link that you love, or a twitterer you love, or anything you “More than like”. This negates the old <3 symbol used for hearts, saving you one character, plus it looks a lot neater.

6. The Pipe
How To Get It: Shift+\
When You Should Use It?
Originally used in Computer Science to show the destination of data (amongst other things), the Pipe character has found a new home in title bars accross the Search Engine Optimized web. Use this in tweets to split up your tweets, I like it whenever I post a blog title, to split my name of the blog post away from my blog name.

The other way I’ve seen people using this is through retweeting, as one of the standards for commenting on a retweet – by putting a | at the end of the retweetee (is that even a word?), you can define what are your thoughts & what are the retweetee’s thoughts.

7. The Bullet
How To Get It: Hold Alt + Type 7
When You Should Use It?
I’ve found this is great at highlighting a tweet with one at the beginning, and one at the end of the tweet. However, with this (and number 8 on the list), you should be careful, as you can really annoy people with these.

Used sparingly, bullets in tweets can have a huge effect on the CTR of links on the site, because you use solid shapes to draw in people to your tweet. You will stand out, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing – well – that’s down to you, and what you are drawing attention to.

8. Pointers
How To Get These: Hold Alt & Type 16 (for right pointer) or 17 (for left pointer)
When Should You Use This?
Very, very, sparingly. “Play Forward” & “Play Reverse” can launch your tweets into the stratosphere. However, use them too much, and you could destroy all credibility you have.

Using these characters in tweets REALLY highlight your tweets, as they act like arrows, pointing people’s eyes to your tweet. They are “filled in” as well, so that they are instant eye catchers on your tweets full of text.

Please be careful though, as overuse can make you seem like a bit of a spammer and an attention seeker, which could result in mass unfollowing. Every now and then, for really important tweets, you can get away with it. Just.

Word of Warning
These characters work fine on Twitter, a lot of desktop clients, and on the iPhone. However, because they work on a number of systems doesn’t mean that they work on all systems, so use them sparingly and a way to highlight, as to not only not annoy, but to make your tweets accesible to as many of your followers as possible.

However, these are great ways to brighten up your tweets using more obscure characters, so why not use one of the characters above the next time you tweet your favourite song, or link to your blog, or retweet a friend? I’m sure you will stand out in more ways than one!

http://www.twitip.com/8-characters-to-make-your-tweets-sparkle

Stand out in the crowd

In a world of high volume, high velocity social networking, it’s no longer good enough to just be present, you have to find ways to stand out so you don’t look like every other real estate agent who is following people on Twitter, Facebook, etc. So we found a quick way that you can aggregate all of your social networks that doesn’t take technical knowledge!

Getting set up

There are many options for creating an online business card that shows all of your social networking and blogging profiles, but our two favorite are card.ly and magntize because they are easy to use and have the most modern themes on the market.

Here are some screen shots of the final result of both online business cards (click the image to see a live demo):

To get started, all you need is a list of your usernames and URLs for your social networks. There are many themes available (themes are like templates or skins) and I chose the ones above because they were clean and streamlined. As a side note, the black and white design has more colorful options, and is the only of the options that offers a capture mechanism, making it act almost as a website and makes it possible for people not using social networks to reach out.

Bonus tips:

Almost all social networks have a spot in your biographical information for you to share your website and the international standard is to share your blog URL. But imagine someone visiting your new online business card instead and seeing not only your main blog but your other social networks and any other blogs you create, giving people the option to reach you in whatever way they are most comfortable. That is awesome!

Another tip is instead of typing http://lani.magntize.com into your social network’s bio position, go to a URL shortener (like bit.ly or dwarfURL) and create a shortened URL not for the convenience of being short but for the ability to track clicks to your online business card, so http://lani.magntize.com has just become http://bit.ly/47MhiY and now I can tell when someone is clicking on it from Twitter or Facebook or otherwise. Don’t just blindly use social media, measuring ROI is possible!

The last tip for online business cards is to use the url on your own business card. Instead of typing in each address you are using and having 20 lines on your card, send people to one place and let them choose their final destination. The era of being able to point people to your blog is not over, but in such a noisy world, it’s nice to be organized about it.

http://agentgenius.com/real-estate-technology-new-media/showcase-your-networking-presence-with-an-online-business-card/

November 20th, 2009 | by Barb Dybwad

Each Friday we choose a Lunchtime Polltopic to get a sense of how Mashable readers feel about the chosen topic of the week. Below are the results from last Friday’s poll, where we asked for your favorite news reader.

Is your favorite app or service not represented in the list? Let us know in the comments! And to make sure your vote counts next time, be sure to vote in this week’s Lunchtime Poll, where we want to know your favorite video-sharing service.

A surprising number of readers in the top 10 were Mac apps, and enough of you said you’d switched to using Twitter as your primary news source to propel it to #5. Google Reader was far and away the winner though, with over three times the number of votes for the 2nd place finisher Feedly.

Top 10 Mashable Reader News Readers

10. Reeder (iPhone) [warning: iTunes link]

9. Times (Mac)

8. Klipfolio

7. Shrook (Mac)

6. NetNewsWire (Mac)

5. Twitter

4. FeedDemon (Windows)

3. NetVibes

2. Feedly

1. Google Reader

Anne Brannon | November 18, 2009

Most people would no doubt lose their jobs if they spent half the working hours that I spend on Facebook. Luckily for me, working at a social media agency means that pretty much IS my job. So, as I was doing my job today, I came across something I’ve not yet seen: Facebook Fan Badges. I’m more than familar with Fan Page badges that creators of fan pages can use to promote their presence on Facebook across various other social channels. However, this new discovery sparked my interest. Here’s what I was greeted with upon logging into Facebook and loading a page of which I am currently a fan:

I initially logged in and visited the Windows fan page (it’s a client page so I like to keep a close watch on it), and that’s when I first noticed the Fan Badge prompt. I then visited the Swell fan page to give myself the illusion of living the Southern Cali lifestyle. However, I was still served the same Fan Badge for the Windows page, then, the Fan Badge prompt disappeared completely. I can’t replicate it. It’s so mysterious. However, I did figure out that the Fan Badge is a fixture on the Facebook Widgets page. This is pretty cool because you can really easily create a Fan Badge for any page you support. You select the page you want to show love for from a dropdown menu and it automatically generates code that you can copy and paste onto your Facebook profile, blog or Web site. This is what it looks like:

Have any of you noticed these Fan Badge promos? What are your thoughts on the fan badges? Do you think they have the potential to serve as a valuable resource for brand loyalists to show their love for pages they absolutely adore? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Oh, and I selflessly volunteer the Ignite Social Media fan page for all your Fan Badge experimentation needs.

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/facebook-fan-badge/

That’s a common problem. Social networking online isn’t unlike networking offline. You meet people, identify connectors, and find and build relationships with influencers and prospects. You can’t simply step into the first Rainmakers event and do this (Rainmakers is a regional networking group that has explosive growth). It takes time, requires some digging, and ultimately momentum to begin profiting from your network. This is as true online as it is offline.

1. Get online: Build your LinkedIn profile, open a Twitter account, and if you want to speed up the process (and invest more time), begin writing a blog on your industry. If you don’t have a blog, then find other blogs you can contribute to.

2. Identify Connectors: One quick way to find the connectors in your group is to join an online network such as One Degree Connected. ODC builds an online network and allows you to prospect much easier by connecting your address book to everyone else’s.Connectors are also Twitter users with large followers, or bloggers with a large following.

On Twitter, you can do this by researching hashtags and finding the people behind those industry tweets. Advanced tools such as Radian6 can also help here!

For Blogs, the latest changes to Technorati can really help you narrow down your targets. Doing a blog search for a term like CRM can provide you with a list of blogs, in order of popularity! Add these feeds to your favorite feed reader!

3. Build Relationships: Once you identify connectors, begin adding value to their content by adding relevant contributions to via comments and tweets. Don’t self-promote… these aren’t the folks buying your products, they’re the ones who will talk about your products and services.

4. Attract a Following: By contributing to the conversation and building authority in your industry – connectors will talk about you and influencers will begin following you. The key here is to give, give, give… you can’t give enough. If you’re worried about people simply stealing your information and using it without paying you… don’t! Those folks were never going to pay you, anyways. The ones who would pay are the ones who still will.

5. Provide a Path to Engagement: This is where a blog really comes in handy! Now that you’ve got folks’ attention, you need to bring them back somewhere to do business with you. For a blog, it can be a call-to-action in your sidebar or a contact form. Provide some registration pages for downloads or webinars. If nothing else, offer your LinkedIn profile to connect with them. Whatever you decide, just be sure it’s very easy to find… the easier it is to connect with you, the more people will.

Social networking for producing sales isn’t difficult but it may take a long time. Just as putting sales goals down for the number of calls you’re making, number of meetings you’re attending and number of closes you’re making… begin putting down some goals on the number of industry folks you’re finding, the number you’re following, connecting with, and contributing to. Once you get your game on, volunteer for a guest post or have those connectors or influencers guest post on your blog. Trading audiences is a great way to expand your network.

As you continue to work your network and build relationships with connectors and influencers, you’ll gain their respect and open yourself to opportunities you never knew existed. I’m consulting daily now, speaking regularly, writing a book and have a growing business – all built from an effective social networking strategy. It took years to get here – but it was well worth it! Hang in there!

http://marketingtechblog.com/blogging/sales-social-networking/