In Business Since 2001 We accept Paypal
Home Article Directory
More from Bill Platt
"Bill Platt for Book Authors" Youtube Channel
Training for Book Authors
Other Resources for Book Authors & Publishers
FictionPlots.com (350+ Plots & counting)
Please Support Our Advertisers

 
D9 Hosting


Social Media Marketing Tools – Putting Your Finger on the Pulse of the Web

Copyright (c) 2011-2023

Time makes a mockery of most predictions. Once derided as the tools and hobbies of hopeless shut-ins and intellectual ivory tower sorts, social media sites such as PayPal, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the home of an entirely new, powerhouse economy. Where hundreds of years of war and diplomacy have failed, social media marketing has succeeded in bringing people around the globe together in the pursuit of common interests and open markets. Social media marketing is the home of successful brand promotion, and finding the right mix of tools to take advantage of it has become the defining issue of the modern brand.

When people refer to SMM tools, they are discussing a host of applications and programs that allow real-time and long-term feedback on the performance of their social networks. This kind of information goes beyond the purely mechanistic approach of SEO and website performance, moving into the realm of genuine social engineering. Social media tools can track the number of times a brand is being mentioned across each network, compare traffic between networks, determine where the buzz is starting and which path it took to get from, say, Digg to Facebook. Knowing the focus of each of these tools and the best way to use them is the key to bringing all this power under control and using it to help promote a brand to its full potential.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is an excellent platform for brands to manage social networks. A simple, efficient, all-in-one approach makes TweetDeck very useful for getting updates out quickly to a number of locations. TweetDeck supports Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, GoogleBuzz, LinkedIn and Foursquare, giving a user easy access to all of the major networks. Users can send out status updates to any or all of these at once, allowing unified messages to be spread in a single step, without the potential to forget one. However, it does have its limitations. Very heavy traffic to multiple accounts can slow down its efficiency, making it more of a startup and middleweight tool than a long-term solution.



HootSuite

Similar to TweetDeck in that it is targeted toward smaller businesses, HootSuite is an alternative tool that allows for several levels of customization. For starters, the basic package is completely free, and will support five networks of the user's choosing. Currently available platforms include Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, MySpace, FourSquare, Facebook and PingFm. Upgrading to paid subscriptions allows additional networks to be included.

HootSuite really shines because it offers steady "streams" of information about each of the user's networks, allowing the aforementioned real-time monitoring of web traffic. If a particular network is flagging or performing particularly well, it will be brought to the manager's attention. Further, HootSuite provides user bios and links to various users' social networking profiles, allowing a brand to tailor its content to the needs of the market more efficiently. The information is a bit limited in the default package, but even upgrading to the $5.99 a month subscription brings a great deal more detail to hand.

Engage121

For larger businesses looking to make their mark in the social networking world, Engage121 offers a number of more powerful options. This is a program for professional social networking managers, because it is entirely customizable to the exact needs of a business. One of its touted features, for example, is the ability of a local office to examine, modify and approve messages from the central branch. In this vein, a generic message can be sent out about company directives, while allowing each branch to add or delete content based on the relevance it has to their own particular mission. Thus a large clothing chain won't waste time sending out messages about their new swimwear line to their regional users in Alaska.

However, it has to be stressed once again that Engage 121 is not a tool for beginners. The sheer number of options can be daunting to put in the hands of an inexperienced manager. It's best to offer it to someone with a great deal of skill under his or her hat who can offer a specific plan of attack for using this tool.

General Thoughts

As a more broad consideration, there's no reason to limit oneself to any one of these applications, or indeed any of their competitors. A sound SMM strategy might, in fact, use several programs at once, either to get multiple sources of information or to test out which works best for a given company's needs. Then as the brand grows and needs increase, the manager can move up to more robust software and applications that better service the needs of the company.

Above all, remember the axiom that these tools are based on the need to promote communication between brand and audience. They are not meant to reduce the users of the network to data that can be analyzed and directed — these are people with their own minds and agendas, who will respond in kind if they feel slighted or taken advantage of. Instead, they should be used as a way to get information about what people want to talk about and to build a brand's reputation.




About The Author: Shop Amazon - Top Gift Ideas
Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the "voice" of our client's brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

VOTE ON THIS ARTICLE
Needs Work >> 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 << Excellent Article

Tell our authors what you think about their article.



Top-Level Category: Business Online Articles

10 Most Recent Articles Written by Enzo F. Cesario

Leveraging the Social in Social Media
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-21 | Word Count: 907 | Page Views: 6188 | Votes: 7 | Rating: 1.14
Social media marketing is about the conversation, not the pitch. Having conversations with people is nice, but the goal of a brand is ultimately to get people interested in spending their time or money on the brand, after all. What does having this conversation accomplish, and just how does a brand use that conversation to get the critical conversion from conversation to customers?

Blog Writing - Finding the Right Person
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-21 | Word Count: 884 | Page Views: 6707 | Votes: 5 | Rating: 0.80
There are a host of articles and sites covering advice on how to address various topics, but one area that doesn't get a lot of attention is what "person" to write the blog in. Each linguistic person has its own strengths and weaknesses, depending on the message that needs to be covered. Ultimately, most will simply write in whatever person is most natural to them, but there is some merit in taking a bit of time to think about the implications, advantages and disadvantages of each.

That First Impression: Title Considerations
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-19 | Word Count: 860 | Page Views: 6103 | Votes: 5 | Rating: 0.60
While it certainly isn't as much work as crafting the body of a superior article, selecting a title for a piece is definitely an important element of the entire process of content creation. Here are some thoughts on crafting a perfect title.

Dynamic Content: Using Analytics to Write Your Blog
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-16 | Word Count: 873 | Page Views: 6148 | Votes: 5 | Rating: 0.60
The role of web analytics in setting useful metrics for a site has been discussed in-depth in any number of places, but this is far from the only useful function that web analytic practices can offer. As in any field, a little thinking outside the box can offer extensive rewards to the creative researcher. Perhaps most usefully, creative cultivation of web analytics can help conquer blogger's block and help a good writer come up with some unique angles for content they thought they had peaked out on.

Trans-tangental: The Value of Off-topic Blogging Posts
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-12 | Word Count: 863 | Page Views: 6374 | Votes: 6 | Rating: 0.33
Brand-oriented blogs by necessity have to focus on a particular topic. People are coming to the blog because of the brand, and they want content related to the brand in most cases. However, there are many very good reasons to go into off-topic posting as well. The trick is to balance the needs of on-topic commentary with the occasional bit of off-the-wall entertainment that brings some lively discussion with it.

Press Preferences - Blogging Software Explained
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-08 | Word Count: 881 | Page Views: 5309 | Votes: 5 | Rating: 0.40
Understanding a few of the more common blog creation software programs can help any blogger make an informed choice about their particular needs and get their message out in the most efficient way. Here are a few of them.

Blog Writing - Ghostwriting Dos and Don'ts
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-06 | Word Count: 879 | Page Views: 6133 | Votes: 6 | Rating: 0.83
There are still some misconceptions about ghostwriting that pop up from time to time. To that end, it can be helpful to clarify the nature of ghostwriting and how it relates to creating a high-quality blog, particularly through examples of some of the best and worst practices that can pop up when employing a ghostwriter.

Beyond Expectations - Getting the Most out of Like and Share
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-09-02 | Word Count: 860 | Page Views: 5861 | Votes: 4 | Rating: 0.25
What started as socialization programs only slightly more complex than the average e-mail client has grown into one of the newest and most promising marketing niches in the entire world. Taking advantage of this means familiarizing oneself with a few surprisingly simple concepts that have unusually far-reaching implications. In particular, marketers are finding that the "Like" and "Share" features on Facebook have become the newest and best tool in the online marketing arsenal.

Four Types of Blogs and How To Use Them
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-08-31 | Word Count: 930 | Page Views: 629
Blogging clearly has arrived and is here to stay, according to the buzzword-slinging set. It's the “next big thing” or the “wave of the future” - even a “revolution.” Still, most of the people commenting on the blogging trend aren't sure exactly what it is, how it works or even what the different kinds of blogs are. Here are a handful of blogging types and what sets them apart from the others.

Once More, With Feeling: Producing Consistent, Quality Blog Content
Written by: Enzo F. Cesario | Distributed: 2011-08-29 | Word Count: 834 | Page Views: 5931 | Votes: 5 | Rating: 1.60
Quality is a key element in good blogging. If the material isn't interesting, it isn't going to be read. Of course, there are different standards of what is interesting. But what is it that makes content quality? How does one get those good ideas and, more importantly, convey them week after week with a steady updating schedule?

All of Author's Articles on this site:

Most Recent "Business Online" Articles

Four Tips For Creating An Effective Authors' Resource Box
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-08-27 | Word Count: 1669 | Page Views: 8289 | Votes: 18 | Rating: 2.50
In article marketing, there are many factors that will affect your articles' ability to promote your website in the most effective manner. In this article, we will briefly discuss a couple those factors, before we dive into how to create an effective Authors' Resource Box, also known as the About The Author Information.

Website Traffic Generation: Winning the Love of the Traffic Fairy
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-08-24 | Word Count: 1149 | Page Views: 9151 | Votes: 14 | Rating: 1.86
Some people still believe that all they have to do is build a website and customers will magically appear on their site... Once they have built their websites, they wait anxiously for the "Traffic Fairy" to come and sprinkle its magic dust on their website too, so that they can make lots of money like other success website owners.

What Kind Of Backlinks Are Best At Helping Your Website In Google?
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-08-21 | Word Count: 439 | Page Views: 10213 | Votes: 23 | Rating: 2.74
I was in the Warrior Forum, and someone asked what kinds of Backlinks are worth pursuing. This is my answer to that query.

Understanding the Mechanics of Effective Article Marketing and Article Syndication
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-08-01 | Word Count: 1399 | Page Views: 6793 | Votes: 10 | Rating: 1.80
Visit several marketing blogs or marketing forums, and you will find dozens of people proclaiming the death of article marketing as an effective marketing tool. Before we start agreeing with them, consider this...

Top 10 Reasons Why Online Marketers Fail With Article Marketing
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-07-31 | Word Count: 1025 | Page Views: 8086 | Votes: 13 | Rating: 2.08
If you've been marketing products online for any length of time, you've likely heard people talk about the power and promise of article marketing for the promotion of your online business. Unfortunately, many online marketers have tried to utilize article marketing to benefit their online business and failed. In this article, I document the top ten reasons why people fail to find success with article marketing... And how to fix your article marketing campaigns...

Article Marketing Tip: Stop Trying To Sell From Within Your Articles
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-07-30 | Word Count: 1229 | Page Views: 6244 | Votes: 10 | Rating: 1.40
The basic premise of article marketing is to present people information that will be important to them, then at the end of the article, present information "about the author" and offer to the reader a means to see how the author can help the reader further. When done well, article marketing continues to be one of the most effective methods of promotion that one could employ online.

The Six Degrees of Internet Marketing
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-07-30 | Word Count: 991 | Page Views: 8671 | Votes: 14 | Rating: 2.43
The theory behind the Six Degrees of Separation is that all people on earth can be connected together in as little as six steps. Now, I know what you might be thinking at this juncture... That sounds fun and interesting, but what does that have to do with Internet Marketing? That is a great question that I am going to answer for you in this article...

How To Win More Eyeballs for Your Offers and Websites
Written by: Bruce Lansing | Distributed: 2013-07-29 | Word Count: 1373 | Page Views: 6147 | Votes: 11 | Rating: 1.45
Most people using search engines on the Internet are looking for answers to questions and solutions to problems. If you can give people what the answers they want, you will be able to position your business as one worth hiring today or tomorrow.

How To Increase Your Rates and Earnings As a Freelance Writer
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-07-29 | Word Count: 1191 | Page Views: 6176 | Votes: 11 | Rating: 1.55
Freelance writers fill a very important role in today's business marketplace. They create the on-demand, customized content that business owners everywhere need to push their businesses forward. In this article, the author explains what freelance writers should do to ensure that employers will pay them well for their services.

Promoting Your Business With Content:: Defining Your Writing Strategy
Written by: Bruce Lansing | Distributed: 2013-07-25 | Word Count: 677 | Page Views: 5874 | Votes: 11 | Rating: 2.00
Many people suggest that you should write articles on the basis of the benefits that people will get from reading your articles. I'd like to suggest that there is a better reason, and that is to write your articles on the basis of what problem people will be able to solve, as a result of reading your articles.

Most Viewed "Business Online" Articles

Attracting Readers to your Book
Written by: Alastair Hall | Distributed: 2006-05-18 | Word Count: 708 | Page Views: 46681 | Votes: 17 | Rating: 2.06
One of the common and obvious ways to market a self-published book is having your own website. The harder part is how to attract your target audience and then convert the sale.

How To Make Visitors Bookmark Your Site
Written by: Cheryl Miller | Distributed: 2006-10-10 | Word Count: 536 | Page Views: 38965 | Votes: 21 | Rating: 2.19
When visitors bookmark your site it is a sign that you have built a great website and are pleasing them. Visitors think highly enough of your site to want to return and possibly tell others about it. You are not only increasing traffic from your existing clientele you are encouraging new traffic by means of viral marketing.

Treat Online 'Guests' With Respect
Written by: Rick Sloboda | Distributed: 2007-07-27 | Word Count: 472 | Page Views: 30473 | Votes: 33 | Rating: 3.33
Does your website show your customers lack of respect? Review the following checklist to find out.

How I Got 70,000 Useless Visitors To My Site In One Day! (One Internet Marketer's Analysis of Social Bookmark Traffic)
Written by: Titus Hoskins | Distributed: 2007-11-06 | Word Count: 1545 | Page Views: 28518 | Votes: 10 | Rating: 1.70
Is social bookmark traffic useless? Is it even worth cultivating for your site? Can it be used from an online marketing perspective? Read to discover one Internet Marketer's analysis of social bookmark/media traffic...

Successful Article Marketers Help Readers Solve Problems
Written by: Bill Platt | Distributed: 2013-07-24 | Word Count: 816 | Page Views: 26283 | Votes: 34 | Rating: 2.79
Every week, I have the opportunity to speak with people about the benefits and challenges of using article marketing to promote an online business. Article marketing is about getting your sales message in front of potential customers and to get links to your website. Many interpret this to mean that an article should directly promote a website within the article, but that approach is wrong and will reduce one's success using this methodology.

Tips For Building Your First Website
Written by: Benny Tsabba | Distributed: 2007-05-30 | Word Count: 1511 | Page Views: 19531 | Votes: 18 | Rating: 2.11
New people are coming online everyday. And many of those people desire to turn their spare time into spare cash. So begins their journey.

The Importance Of Effective Follow-up
Written by: Kate Smalley | Distributed: 2007-01-15 | Word Count: 493 | Page Views: 14488 | Votes: 22 | Rating: 2.55
Marketing experts say that following up with clients is crucial to successful selling because most prospects do not buy the first time, according to Aweber, a leading autoresponder company. People must encounter a marketing message multiple times before making a purchasing decision.

Today's Google Bots and What They Do
Written by: Kim Roach | Distributed: 2006-08-02 | Word Count: 1061 | Page Views: 14177 | Votes: 16 | Rating: 2.63
Google currently indexes over 8 billion web pages. However, before these pages were placed in the index, they were each crawled by a special spider known as the GoogleBot. Unfortunately, many web masters do not know about the internal workings of this virtual robot. This article will attempt to reveal some of the most important Google spiders, their function, and how they affect you as a web master. We'll start with the well-known GoogleBot.

Ten Tips For User Friendly Online Registration Forms
Written by: Jim Romanik | Distributed: 2009-02-24 | Word Count: 775 | Page Views: 13378 | Votes: 15 | Rating: 0.93
Have you ever registered or attempted to register for an event and spent half an hour trying to figure out what you needed to do? Or have you used an online registration form that lost your data or was so complicated that it seemed like more work than faxing the form?

Successful Forum JVs and How To Get Them
Written by: Diana Barnum | Distributed: 2006-06-15 | Word Count: 648 | Page Views: 13109 | Votes: 19 | Rating: 2.11
The forming of common alliances, also referred to as a joint venture (JV), happens nearly every day in the business world. One of the most popular means of linking people up online of so that they can work together on their projects is via forums, where people of all levels of business and expertise post in common threads.

Highest Ranked "Business Online" Articles

Is Your Business 'Out Of Site'? Employ The Ultimate Marketing Tool
Written by: Rick Sloboda | Distributed: 2007-01-09 | Word Count: 445 | Page Views: 5586 | Votes: 21 | Rating: 3.76
With the rapid expansion of the digital economy, the web site is conceivably the most powerful marketing and sales tool you can employ. Find out what a web site can do for you.

How To Use Your Race To Get Rich
Written by: Herbert Harris | Distributed: 2009-07-07 | Word Count: 1407 | Page Views: 5995 | Votes: 48 | Rating: 3.71
Amid recent news reports that there continues to be an ongoing and substantial gap between the net worth of Whites and other racial groups, it is easy to be distracted and overwhelmed by the raw data. However, I am immediately reminded of a quote offered by an economic expert from the past... "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!"

Why I'm A 'B-Level Marketer!'
Written by: Willie Crawford | Distributed: 2007-07-16 | Word Count: 917 | Page Views: 6864 | Votes: 26 | Rating: 3.58
At a recent Internet marketing seminar, I was sitting around the hotel lobby with approximately 20 other seminar attendees and speakers. The seminar's host was in attendance, and the conversation covered a range of internet marketing topics with extreme frankness. Our proximity to the hotel bar certainly contributed to our 'conviviality.'

15 fixes for a failing website
Written by: Rick Sloboda | Distributed: 2007-02-07 | Word Count: 593 | Page Views: 3555 | Votes: 25 | Rating: 3.48
Employ these 15 tactics to improve your search engine rankings, engage visitors and convert more sales.

The Most Important Ingredient for Info Product Success (is You)
Written by: Judy Murdoch | Distributed: 2008-04-15 | Word Count: 981 | Page Views: 6045 | Votes: 15 | Rating: 3.47
Last week I was attending a conference and mentioned to someone I help small business owners create information products. The other person was very friendly until I said "information products." Then the temperature in the room dropped about 10-degrees

How to Keep Your Article Content Fresh and Interesting
Written by: Craig Ritsema | Distributed: 2006-08-29 | Word Count: 699 | Page Views: 5567 | Votes: 25 | Rating: 3.44
Webmasters everywhere are constantly on the lookout for fresh and interesting content for their website. Along with these content qualities is the requirement that it be unique. Everyone wants their website to stand out above the others in the search engine results. So what is the trick for you to keep a steady supply of this quality content coming your way?

How To Build A Profitable Twitter Profile
Written by: Harold Hemmings | Distributed: 2009-08-06 | Word Count: 1357 | Page Views: 2746 | Votes: 8 | Rating: 3.38
Online marketers everywhere are finally starting to tap into the Twitter Marketplace. Marketers are getting involved in Twitter at awesome rates, but all seem to have one unanswered question: How do we actually monetize this marketplace? It is my goal that by the time you have read this article, you will have a clear idea of exactly how to monetize your activities in Twitter.

Increasing Productivity In Your Online Business
Written by: Willie Crawford | Distributed: 2006-06-14 | Word Count: 1407 | Page Views: 7454 | Votes: 40 | Rating: 3.35
Running an online "empire" of approximately 1600 websites and blogs, selling a variety of products, services and ideas, I have to be much more productive than the average person in a "regular job."

Turn A One-Night-Stand With Google Into A Long-Term Relationship
Written by: Diane Metz | Distributed: 2007-07-10 | Word Count: 882 | Page Views: 2711 | Votes: 6 | Rating: 3.33
Want to win the favor of Google? Then you've got to build a long-term relationship with her. Many new SEO strategies are simply recycled old-tricks. And Google is a smart gal who can see right through them. Position your website for the future by understanding what Google really likes â€" and what she really loathes.

Treat Online 'Guests' With Respect
Written by: Rick Sloboda | Distributed: 2007-07-27 | Word Count: 472 | Page Views: 30473 | Votes: 33 | Rating: 3.33
Does your website show your customers lack of respect? Review the following checklist to find out.











Download an eBook today
 
Directory Navigation
Locate By Category:

ALL Categories
Arts & Crafts
Arts & Entertainment
Automotive
Business - Offline
Business - Online
Career
Computers
Education
Family
Finance
Food & Drink
Health & Wellness
Home & Garden
Humor
Internet
Nature & Pets
Real Estate
Religion
Self Improvement
Shopping
Society
Sports & Recreation
Technology
Travel & Leisure
Uncategorized
World Events
Writing & Speaking

Change Number of Results:
50 - 100 - 200 - 500
Article Reprint Rights
Creative Commons License

This work is
licensed under a
Creative Commons
License


You are not required to show the creative commons license notice when you reprint this work.
Article Statistics
Word Count: 856

Total Views: 5872

Article Rating: 0.60 of 5
Votes Cast: 5

More Articles By Author:



Last Distribution Date:
2011-09-14 10:30:00

Internal ID: #7728





All Articles are Copyright © 2001-2023 of the Defined Authors.

All other material and images on this site are:
Copyright © 2001-2023, ThePhantomWriters.com