Tuesday, October 31, 2017

More Social Media Success Stories
If you are still harboring doubt about the viability of social media, here’s more proof directly from today’s headlines.
In an attempt to undermine the political structure of the United States, the Kremlin created a diabolical plot aimed at subverting the 2016 Presidential Elections with social media.
The plan was simple. An institution created content and information, and developed a foolproof plan of execution – the Internet. The formula is straightforward and one that I have been writing about for a while.
According to reports, Russia-linked accounts sent more than 1.4 million automated tweets about the US elections. Ultimately, to its credit, Twitter suspended these accounts. Furthermore, “fake information” posted on Facebook reached 126 million Americans – about one-third of the population.
Emphasizing how widely content on the social media platform can spread, Facebook said in prepared testimony it submitted Monday, October 30, to the Senate Judiciary Committee that while some 29 million Americans directly received material from 80,000 posts by 120 fake Russian-backed pages in their own news feeds, those posts were “shared, liked and followed by people on Facebook, and, as a result, three times more people may have been exposed to a story that originated from the Russian operation.”
Note what Facebook pointed out: share, like and follow. Content that you create and disseminate via Twitter or Facebook should be shared, liked, followed, or retweeted to win as many views and followers as possible. This means following this procedure 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Posts from Russian-backed Facebook accounts from January 2015 to August 2017, by Facebook’s estimation, reached potentially half of the 250 million Americans who are eligible to vote. None of the 80,000 posts generated by fake Russian-backed pages includes the 3,000 Facebook advertisements purchased by Russian entities, according to others familiar with the issue.
The shared content that Facebook estimates reached 126 million Americans was likely hard, if not impossible, for users of the social media platform to identify as originating from Russia. But nonetheless it did appear in cyberspace.
Google said in a blogpost yesterday it has discovered 1,108 videos uploaded to its YouTube video site, which were viewed a total of 309,000 times in the U.S. from June 2015 to November 2016, by accounts linked to Russian operatives. The videos encompass 43 hours of content from 18 different English-language accounts, it said. In addition, Google said two accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency spent $4,700 on search and display ads during the 2016 elections.
Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to testify before Congress about Russian disinformation today and Wednesday.
Social media platforms are being vilified for falling prey to destructive Russian propaganda. Indeed, they weren’t careful. While oversight of their activity will not benefit the beneficial commercial and social interaction and intercourse on the Internet, their common task is to step up self-policing.
For small businesses and nonprofits, the lesson here is that social media works. As I have written, all you have to do is create a strategic plan about why you need to be involved in social media, develop content, build a community of followers, formulate a plan of execution and then fulfill it recurrently.
How will you tweet?
Join the conversation in cyberspace about boosting your business and outreach by using Twitter and social media and let me know your achievements. If you have examples of how you tweeted to boost outreach, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.
I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:
http://thoughtleadership.yolasite.com/              
If you’re looking for advice on recruiting, company handbooks and other human resources topics, I’d like to suggest to you this interesting website:
If you’re in northern New Jersey, I’d like to direct your attention to this timely topic: Cyber Resilience seminar at Ramapo College, Ramapo, NJ. Wednesday, November 8. All day. Sponsored by NJ Small Business Administration of Bergen County and Small Business Administration. Admission Free. Registration Required. www.sbdcbergen.com

Scroll down along the Boosting Your Outreach blogsite to read or reread older posts.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Wanted, Social Media Manager – Are You Available 24/7?
Advice blogs and columns on how to do social media abound. You can’t open a professional website like Linked In without being inundated with articles about how to succeed in promoting your business or nonprofit organization via social media.
Many writers reposition colleagues’ thoughts by expanding the material with their observations, comments and experiences.
Recently, I came across a succinct opinion about what it means to be the manager of social media outreach that perfectly dovetailed my writings on the subject.
Jeff Bullas writing about “10 Essential Skills a Social Media Manager Needs to Have on Their Resume” on Linked In, noted that a decade ago social media wasn’t a profession and it didn’t even enjoy a job description. It barely had a definition. Facebook was a year old and social media marketing elicited perplexed expressions.
“Fast forward a decade and every organization must have a social media manager, whether full time or part time,” Bullas wrote.
Truer words about the effectiveness of social media and the responsibility of being a social media manager couldn’t have been written. The job of being a social media manager requires 24/7 attention to the cyber venue to ensure that your audience, customers and other interested parties are given every opportunity to learn about what you’re doing. Tepid dedication to social media can have damaging results.
Twitter is an incredible tool that can provide your brand, your small business or your civic organization with a voice and personality. Twitter can also work to turn you, the small businessperson – the owner, into a thought leader about what is happening in your industry and your sphere of interest. The benefit of such a distinction is that you will become the go-to-person for answers and advice on what’s happening.
To be successful in tweeting, you will have to develop your personality and a unique style. That’s what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter followers and turn tweeting into a successful marketing tool for you and your company. As a small business owner, your social media activity should engage the world in the conversation that you initiate.
As the leader of your organization, you are goal driven, growth driven or mission driven. You focus on the bigger picture of promoting your company, product, service, NGO or issue. Consequently, you have to delegate the social media job responsibility to a trusted associate. Just as bookkeeping or human resources, social media management is a full-time or at least part-time task.
In addition to content, successful tweets should include a link to your website and other websites, blog posts, PDF documents, photographs or videos for greater impact. By doing so, you direct the readers’ attention to more information about the topic of your expertise. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-characters.
However, you can’t wake up one morning and tell yourself “I’ll start tweeting today.” You have to develop a plan and strategy about what you want to accomplish. Becoming a thought leader is a legitimate marketing goal for you as the proprietor. Making your company well known for its product or service is an equally legitimate marketing goal for your business. But as the business owner, you must remember not to overlook daily chores as you tweet.
You can’t build your business by keeping to yourself and you surely cannot have success on social media without virtually shaking hands. You have to get out of your niche and interact. You should tweet the same information several times a day with slight differences. You have to invite readers to join your conversation and you have to participate in conversations. You should also follow likeminded people, similar businesses and vendors, common industries, and supportive stakeholders, like their tweets and retweet their tweets. Their followers and readers may become your followers and readers. This builds your community and recognition in Twittersphere. If you don’t interact with the world, the world, your potential clients and prospective supporters will leave you by the side of the cyber-road.
As Bullas noted, social media managers “need to be like a juggler at a circus and keep a lot of balls up in the air and make them all land safely. It requires skillsets which means managing many moving parts. Technical, analytical, creative with a bit of project management thrown in.”
Because tweeting and retweeting are never ending, managing the space is almost a 24/7 job. There’s always someone awake in Twittersphere – nearby or far away. It means monitoring, managing, updating and being inspired by the clients, advocates and other sources and addressing the issues raised.
Among the skills needed to do the job are:
1. Strategy planning
2. Tactics and execution – when to tweet or retweet
3. Community creation and management
4. Create content
5. Understand how content works on a social web
6. Optimizing content and technology
7. Creative mindset
8. Writing skills in a limited word count
9. Be on top of the latest digital marketing trends – which venue to use
10. Analytical skills – how to read SEO
11. Leadership and communication skills – internally and externally
It’s a major commitment and investment on the part of business and NGO management that should not be underestimated.
How will you tweet?
Join the conversation in cyberspace about boosting your business and outreach by using Twitter and social media and let me know your achievements. If you have examples of how you tweeted to boost outreach, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.
I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:
http://thoughtleadership.yolasite.com/              
If you’re looking for advice on recruiting, company handbooks and other human resources topics, I’d like to suggest to you this interesting website:
Scroll down along the Boosting Your Outreach blogsite to read or reread older posts.

I’d like to direct your attention to this timely topic: Cyber Resilience at Ramapo College, Ramapo, NJ. Wednesday, November 8. All Day. Sponsored by NJ Small Business Administration of Bergen County and Small Business Administration. Admission Free. Registration Required. www.sbdcbergen.com

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Twitter: Powerful Tool to Reach out to Your Marketplace
Twitter users who haven’t yet mastered getting their point across in 140 characters, have no fear, you will soon have the ability to say twice as much in one tweet.
Twittersphere has been abuzz with news that Twitter is experimenting with expanding its character limit for each tweet.
The social media venue announced last month that the test would start with small groups of users in various languages including English. In a blog post, Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen and senior software engineer Ikuhiro Ihara said the test would not be available in languages like Japanese, in which expressing longer sentiments in fewer characters is easier.
Twitter users have frequently complained about the limited amount of space available for each tweet, and have begged for an expansion for years. It takes time and effort to become proficient in the art of saying something pithy or salient in 140 characters. Last year, Twitter reportedly considered expanding to a 10,000-character limit, which could have dramatically changed the way people use the service, but that idea was ultimately abandoned. Then, in the meantime, Twitter unveiled a new handy feature that makes it easier to avoid exceeding the 140-character limit by no longer counting additional media against that total, such as photos, videos and GIFs.
Indeed, now you can use all 140 characters and add an image without being forced to reduce your word count.
While Twitter’s efficacy and charm as users compose quaint abbreviations has been in its brevity, its other feature has also contributed to its virtually universal usage in all languages – swiftness. You can quickly tell the whole world about something good or bad, beneficial or detrimental. You can launch a new project or offer a new product or service by merely pressing “send.” You can monitor what is being said about you as well.
Given its universality, Twitter has surpassed other media as the source of information or news about any topic.
Markandey Katju, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, opined in his blog that historically media arose in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries as an organ of the people against feudal oppression. Then, all the organs of power were in the hands of the feudal authorities, and so the people had to create new organs to represent their interests. The media, which was at the time only the print media, became a powerful organ in the hands of the people to fight against feudalism. The media represented the voice of the future, as contrasted to the feudal organs which wanted to preserve the status quo.
Today, Twitter represents the voice of the people and many powerful and average people tweet to get their thoughts out before the media spin it in another direction. Just read President Trump’s voluminous daily tweets.
As I have noted in the past, Twitter is a powerful tool for reaching out across the street, marketplace or ocean. It is too powerful to be left to the whims of teenagers.
Twitter has become a valuable platform for online communication and, yes, conversation. TechCrunch reported that Twitter is receiving 8 million unique visitors per month and about 500 million messages are posted daily. So your potential audience is incredibly vast.
Twitter is a fantastic tool to provide your brand and your small business with a voice and personality. Twitter can also work to turn you, the small businessperson – the owner, into a thought leader about what is happening in your industry. The benefit of such a distinction is that you will become the go-to-person for answers and advice on what’s happening. Consequently, the small business’ sales team will then be in a better position to sell.
Being successful in tweeting, you will have to develop your personality and a unique style. That’s what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter following and turn it into a successful marketing tool for you and your company.
Social media platforms have emerged as popular marketing channels for small businesses, according to G2 Crowd’s poll. It revealed that 80% of respondents used Facebook for marketing purposes, while 51% turned to Twitter. While both are good while serving distinct purposes, I tend to favor Twitter because with Facebook you deal with an audience that you’ve allowed to enter your space. With Twitter, you have access to far more people and they have access to you. Your messages have the potential to reach a greater audience.
To succeed in social media or Twitter marketing, you must create a topic, build an audience and invite the world to join your conversation. It’s about talking to your prospects and consumers, interacting with them. If you are not going to do this, don’t use Twitter as a marketing tool, it simply won’t work. Make friends, be a friend and reply. Show your followers that you want to engage and be involved with them – this provides ideal customer service and states that you are, in fact, personable.
For every business, the usage is different. In general, you want to find the optimum spot between what your target audience wants to hear and things that promote your business. For many businesses, the answer is to focus on how your products and services benefit your customers.
Give people useful information and answer their questions, and they will consider you a valuable member of their community – a thought leader. That’s an important first step to winning a new customer.
As a small business owner, engage the world in the conversation, but don’t sell. Let your sales team sell.
Successful tweets should include a link to your website and other websites, blog posts, PDF document, photograph or video for greater impact. By doing so, you direct the readers’ attention to more information about the topic of your expertise. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-characters.
However, you can’t wake up one morning telling yourself “I’ll start tweeting today.” You have to develop a plan and strategy about what you want to accomplish. Becoming a thought leader is a legitimate marketing goal for you as the proprietor. Making your company well known for its product or service is an equally legitimate marketing goal for your business. But as the business owner, you must remember not to overlook your daily chores as you tweet.
You can’t build your business by keeping to yourself and you surely cannot have success on social media without virtually shaking hands. You have to get out of your bubble and interact. You should tweet the same information several times with slight differences. You have to invite readers to join your conversation and you have to participate in conversations. You should also follow likeminded people, similar businesses and vendors, and common industries, like their tweets and retweet their tweets. Their followers and readers may become your followers and readers. This builds your recognition in Twittersphere. If you don’t interact with the world, the world will leave you by the side of the road.
Twitter suggests that businesses follow what it calls the 80/20 principle. That means that 80% of your tweets should focus on driving interactions with your followers, using retweets, replies, and favorites. Once you’ve built a rapport with your network, you can start to mix in direct offers or promotions that get followers to take actions, such as clicking on a link or making a purchase from your website. If you push too much, too soon, your followers will abandon you.
Use hashtags “#” that focus on keywords or buzzwords that are used in your industry and also Twitter handles “@” that direct your thoughts to specific people, companies, vendors and industries. This requires that you spend time researching both tools.
Don’t underestimate the benefits of hashtags and handles. I have solicited responses from corporate giants like Kelly Services, Burger King and United Airlines with my tweets targeted at them. I have also solicited likes and retweets from strangers with my thoughts that aroused their favor – or ire. With the open, wild-west nature of twittersphere, where trolls can hide behind every hashtag, you should be prepared to encounter proponents as well as opponents.
Tweeting is serious business that must be treated seriously. Your usage will signal your seriousness as a businessperson. If you have time, learn it and do it yourself. If not, learn it and assign it to a staff member but monitor it the activity.
How will you tweet?
Join the conversation in cyberspace about boosting your business and outreach by using Twitter and social media and let me know your thoughts. If you have examples of how you tweeted to boost outreach, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.

I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:
http://thoughtleadership.yolasite.com/              
If you’re looking for advice on recruiting, company handbooks and other human resources topics, I’d like to suggest to you this interesting website:
Scroll down on the Boosting Your Outreach blogsite to read or reread older posts.