Below is a great article that I found from a Facebook friend whom I also follow on Twitter. This article brings up an interesting topic: Should you cross-post updates to your various social media outlets?

I personally do cross-post. I found that it is very time saving. However, I do have multiple businesses and every update is not necessarily appropriate to each of those businesses. So in this regard cross-posting may be limiting me. What are your views?

Should you cross-post updates to Facebook and Twitter?
By Ari B. Adler

Consider your audience before posting the same update to multiple social media channels

The root strategy for any public relations initiative includes creating your message, determining your audience, and finding the best way of delivering your message to that audience. But now, with social media, technology has given people the ability to blast identical messages to different audiences.

LinkedIn allows you to post your status update simultaneously to Twitter. You can automatically feed your tweets to Google Buzz. You can connect tweets with your Facebook status updates or your Posterous feed. And with third-party software like Tweetdeck, you can post the same message to multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook and LinkedIn with the touch of one Send button. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on whom you ask.

“I don’t cross-post, because I use each tool for a slightly different purpose. Therefore, I target messages for each audience,” says Angela Dockett, marketing and communications manager for the American Cancer Society in East Lansing, Mich.

“I’ve done it, but am starting to back off,” admits Jason Dobson, a professional gaming blogger in Broken Arrow, Okla. “Audiences can be quite different between social media sites, and the messaging needs to reflect that.”

Although there is some mingling of followers and friends from one platform to the other, the style of how people communicate on those platforms differs, especially from a language standpoint.

While Twitter often is filled with abbreviations and symbols, those same messages appearing on a Facebook page could be confusing. Still, that hasn’t stopped some people from connecting their accounts.

“I post Twitter to Facebook, because I have friends and family finally on Facebook that don’t get Twitter. It’s too much of a hassle for me to keep up with both,” says Colleen Lin, senior rich media producer for the Dallas County Community College District in Texas. When asked if the audiences were ever confused, Lin said they were at first.

“I had some complaints, but I find that most people ‘hide’ me (on Facebook) if they’re irritated,” she says.

For some entities, particularly government agencies and universities, cross-posting may make sense.

“We cross-post, using Facebook for students and future students; Twitter for corporations, media and parents,” says Laurie Creasy, a new media specialist at Penn State.

Creasy said they aren’t using quite the same message everywhere, but Penn State hopes all the separate networks see similar messages. She noted the messages on Twitter are “more professional.”

In Rhode Island, the state Department of Transportation uses the exact same message on multiple networks, according to Dana Alexander Nolfe, RIDOT’s chief public affairs officer.

“I have a very broad target audience, and I think my goal is to get my message to as many people as possible. With so many venues, and to ensure consistency, I cross-post my message,” Nolfe says. “Some social media have a good-size audience, and some are very small, but my feeling is if MySpace, for example, is the only place someone is going to go to get RIDOT’s message, then I am going to continue to ensure that the message gets out that way.”

Some argue that business accounts should be given some leeway when cross-posting.

“The audiences are completely different if you are coming from a personal perspective,” says A.J. Teachout, owner of Ulu Marketing in Detroit. “My Twitter followers are likely not my Facebook friends, or friends at all for that matter, so they will not care to hear about what my kid did the other day. My Facebook friends actually know me and care to hear more personal details.

“That being said, from a business perspective, I think it’s a wise move. Your audience is in it for the same reason—to learn more about the business and, likely, your messages will be similar.”

In the end, it’s up to the individual whether to cross-post. With social media being such a new conduit, there’s no proven right or wrong way to do things—yet.

“The bottom line is: Know your audience and how they might be different across multiple networks and social sites,” Teachout says. “How would that affect your message?”

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One of the most important things a company can do is build a good reputation and making sure that reputation is spread like wildfire on a grass roots level. One the best tools for this is testimonials.

But lets be honest, how many local businesses actually collect testimonials let alone promote them? Very few. Yet you see all the major corporations getting and using testimonials from their customers. Why? Because it is effective marketing.

Internet marketers, especially the rich ones, thrive on getting and splashing success stories all over their sales pages. Books have endorsements from leaders in the world on the back cover. But so few business, and the majority of local businesses even refuse to collect them.

No joke. I went to Dible Builders here in my hometown to let them know of good techniques which may help them overcome this housing crisis. I was told by their 80yr old marketing director pointblank that they were NOT going to get or use testimonials, because this gentlemen stated “No one is going to want to have their name associated with us!”. Speaks volumes doesn’t it.

Well if you have a shitty product, then of course no one wants to put their name in association with yours, but if you have a great product and service and you do an awesome job, then why wouldn’t they be a reference for you.

If you belong to charities or groups and they say you are the greatest thing since sliced bread, why wouldn’t you want to scream that from the rooftops? Only an insane person wouldn’t want to promote that. It is only good for business.

The thing about social media is that now you can, to a degree, control what gets said about you and your business. You can influence other to spread your message far and wide.

I had another businessman, Ken Sudall from “Go Green Glass” express to me that there is no use for Facebook or Twitter in his business. What? Are you nuts? Of course there is. Facebook and Twitter is not about driving business to your business, it is about relationships. Driving business to your business is secondary.

However, you can get a lot of your Facebook and Twitter friends to spread tons of good news about you. And that, my friends, is effective marketing.

Good news made well known is the definition of good PR. Getting that message is object of marketing. Good marketing then is spreading good PR out to the big wide world.

Success stories, testimonials, or whatever you call it are good news, thus it is good PR. You must get that passed out by the boat loads. Social media is a tool to help with that.

But don’t forget the importance of testimonials. People believe what other people say about you more than what you say about you. Get tons of people saying good things about you and the battle is over, get them to say it a lot and the war is over.

Good News Made Well Known is your best strategy. Use it, and use it often.

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If You Needed Anymore More Convincing That You Should Have A Successful Soical Media Marketing Campaign Then You Need To Read This…Your Business’ Future Depends On It.

I was recently reading a blog post by Kyle James where he was giving the statistics of kids between the ages of 18 and 24 are on some sort of social networking site like FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter. 99% of those kids have an active social media account with one or more social media websites. 99%…

Of course this only makes up 24% of the population…right now. But in the future your entire business public will be on the internet, and more especially on social media networks.

What this means for us as business professionals is that in 10-20 years most of our business dealings and sales will be online. Are you ready for this? I know that many of you are not.

Check out these statistics (taken directly from Kyle James’ blog):

Online social networks are hot for Gen Y

• 99 percent have a profile on a social networking site
• 89 percent have downloaded an application to their profile page
• Photos (89 percent), Games (53 percent), Entertainment (51 percent), News (32 percent) and Weather (29 percent) are

The most popular applications

• Mobile social networking is heating up for Gen Yers
• 38% have an iPhone or iPod Touch
• Games (53%), Entertainment (35%), Lifestyle (31%t), Financial – Free (28%), Financial – Paid (7%) are the most popular mobile applications
• More than one quarter (26%) indicated none

You need to embrace the change and start now. Stop procrastinating and start doing something.

Make sure that you share this with your friends by clicking the share button below. Also ensure that you subscribe to my RSS feed to receive future updates.]]–>

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FaceBook Basics To Help Your Business Expand And Grow

Facebook is a very popular online social media tool. Using Facebook for business is very vital in today’s world.

In today’s internet age, you no longer control the message of your business. You fans and followers do. If you do bad business the word will spread like wildfire over the internet and vice versa…you do good business and a lot of people will know about it.

While you can not control fully your online image you can persuade it to reflect what you want. One of  tools to do that is Facebook. Twitter, Tumblr, MySpace etc are other similar tools that you can use to guide how the general public will think about you and your business.

So knowing how to use these tools is vital to successful business.

Below I have provided you a video that will help give your the basic understanding to use Facebook. You can also use this information to use on Twitter and the others. I hope that you enjoy it.

Did you like this article and video? Then share it with your firends. Click the share buttons below and tell your friends about this articel and website. Also, subscribe to my RSS feed so that you can stay up to date on future articles and videos that I will submit.

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