getsocialmedia.net
grow your business
using social media
– a step by step guide –
JuLY 2009
BY PhiLiP van ZYL
Copyright 2009, Philip van Zyl, GetSocialMedia.net
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letter from the author……
Welcome.
If you are a business owner, this guide is written for you. It is also for those who work in new
media teams or marketing departments, and for individuals who are their own brand. The
principles and step by step process in this guide will help you to use the power of social media to
grow your business.
It does not matter if you live in Barcelona, Tokyo, Boston, Rio, Brisbane, Moscow, London,
Canterbury, Dublin, Singapore or Cape Town. Or anywhere else for that matter. This step-by-step
guide will shepherd you along the quick and proven path to successful social media engagement,
customised for you and your business needs.
I have cut straight to the good stuff. You’ll find links to the software I use, as well as to a bunch
of excellent alternative sites, platforms and software. Almost all of these are free. There are tips
in here that you won’t find anywhere else in one place.
If you received this guide from a friend or colleague and you would like to pass it on, please pass
on this link to the original guide and an area where you can sign up for further information &
resources. />The ten steps in this guide will give you the solid foundation you need. From there you can
weave your unique magic and express your creativity as the individual you are. After all, it’s your
business.
I suggest you don’t skip any parts of the guide. Every part links to the others and forms one road
map.
Here’s to your social media success!

Philip van Zyl
Social Media explorer and navigator
Follow me on Twitter at />Copyright Statement: All content © 2009 by Philip van Zyl - Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative
Commons License, Attribution – Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported, />licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ (This means you can share it freely with your friends, but not resell it). Please refer colleagues
and friends to this link to download the report for themselves:
retweet this
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table of contents
executive summary 4
about this guide 5
mindset 6
part 1 - understanding social media 7
what is social media really?
are all social media the same?
part 2 – social media and my business 9
how can my business benefit from social media?
how do I align my social media goals with my business goals?
why is my website optimisation so important for social media?
the ten steps to social media success 12
step 1 – define your company goal.
step 2 – define your website goal and specific call to action.
step 3 – listen to what individuals are saying and where they are saying it.
step 4 – map and list how it is being said and who the influencers are .
step 5 – decide on your social media presence and register accounts online.
step 6 – select your posting and tracking platforms.
step 7 – define all metrics – clearly, and measurably.
step 8 – listen, engage and grow your network.

step 9 - use diverse social marketing strategies.
step 10 – measure, adjust, listen, engage.
part 3 – your social future 28
outsourcing.
advertising on social media.
think laterally.
my social media roadmap 30
resources 40
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executive summary
This free guide contains the principles and processes for business owners, marketing departments
and media teams to build their brand and to grow their businesses, using the power of social media.
The focus of the guide is on understanding social media and getting started efficiently and
effectively, and then streamlining your online activity into those areas where you are most effective.
More than just a theoretical look at the social media landscape, it offers the practical step by
step process to get a social media strategy in place right away, and monitor its ongoing success.
Most people are aware of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, but aren’t sure how to use
them in a business environment. This guide explores the relative merits of many different social
media sites – and explains how to use them for business benefit.
It defines social media for non-experts and includes a step-by-step guide to successful social
media engagement, including a list of helpful resources, software and sites.
Engaging with social media successfully requires a shift in some key principles of selling
and marketing online. It requires businesses to embrace the concept of entering a two-way
conversation with customers through multiple channels, rather than one-way communication
through traditional marketing tools such as advertising.
Social media doesn’t need to be hard work. This is a guide to engaging customers and
stakeholders online in a rewarding, productive and enjoyable way.
It explains how businesses can benefit from a carefully considered social media strategy –

beginning with the recognition that companies and their products are already being discussed
online. The guide shows how you can start to listen to and participate in these discussions, and
build trust with your existing and prospective customers.
The ten practical steps in the second half of this guide are a step by step roadmap to social
media success for businesses and brands. They include tips on defining a company’s social
media goals and linking them to other business goals.
These ten steps are used in conjunction with the “social media roadmap” document at the end
of the guide, where the guide user’s actual strategy is mapped, recorded and designed by them.
The majority of social media strategies are built around a “main” website or blog. The importance
of optimising this “main” site is emphasised and the process explained. This optimisation is
done for both social media links as well as Google and other search engine ranking success. The
report also explains what you want your prospective customers to do once they get to your site.
It includes tips for the most effective way to post new content online, and to monitor content
posted online by others – including a guide to selecting the most relevant material from the huge
volume added to the internet every day.
Should you or your company be a blogger? This guide will help you decide. And if you do decide
to enter the blogosphere, it gives you some excellent tips on how to be successful.
The whole social media environment is changing fast. The biggest and the most successful businesses
in the world are getting involved. Isn’t it time you found out what it could do for you and your business?
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about this report
Engaging social media successfully requires a few basic and yet fundamental shifts in the
practice of selling and marketing online. Start by reading the next section called “Mindset”.
The sustainability of your social media engagement depends upon it.
If you read this report and complete each of the ten steps as they are detailed here, you will
lay a solid foundation for success in using social media to grow your business. You will also be
engaging meaningfully in the community that keeps you in business, and your business will grow.
If you skip any of the steps or don’t complete them your chances of success are slim. Very slim.

(But at least you’ll have found your twice removed cousins who live in Spain, and have seen all of
their christening photos on Facebook).
One of the greatest enablers of success in social media for your business is ACTION. Start small
and think big. Do that today and you’ll see the benefits stack up before your eyes, day by day.
Everything you need to get started is contained in this report or linked to in the References
section. You ready to get going?
Everything in this report is informed by three assumptions. They are the big picture “keys” to
unlock the doors to your success.
the three keys to social media success
1. If you do not have clear goals for your business, nothing you do offline, online or any-other-
line is going to help you realise them. It is essential to have clear and measurable business
goals.
2. If you do not have clear goals and a clear call to action on your “main” website, you will be
diluting your social media efforts before you start. Your “main” site could be your blog or an
HTML-type site. The “main” site action may be to take a free 30-day trial, sign up for a
newsletter, or actually buy a product online right there.
3. Your social media sites will act largely as “feeder” sites and – collectively – as a feeder
network for your main site. Remember this and engage in social media with this in mind.
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mindset
Your mindset about Social media will inform your attitude towards social media even before you
begin.
the old way
Let’s think of the old way of getting your message about your company products
and services out there. Newspaper advertising, for example. A few thousand
bucks for a big newspaper advert. Pay a few thousand bucks. Hmm, fun.
Next hire a research company to nd out whether those few thousand bucks
were well spent and what your customers and prospective customers thought of

it. Pay a few more thousand bucks. Now we’re having fun.
Rinse, repeat, and try to run your business at the same time.
the new way
Listen to your customers from the comfort of your desk, through multiple channels, mostly at
no cost. You are part of a big focus group of people that actually use your products or products
in your market. They are speaking about their wants, frustrations, loves, pains, desires (as we
speak)…all of which you can engage in and influence. Did I mention that the focus group is free?
By engaging with some of the influencers in your community you’ll have access to top
information on your marketplace, trends and insights.
How about social bookmarking? By having one (start with delicious.com) you are not just trying
to get more links to your website to schmooze Google (not exclusively anyway), you are easily
finding top-notch information on your competitors, articles about your market and posts about
your products. It’s like an online library put together specifically for you to use. And it is a free
way for you to bookmark all the articles, posts, reports, videos, interviews etc. that you find
online, using tags rather than the confusing “Bookmark” facility in your browser.
I could go on, but my point is that social media does not have to be a slog. And the more you
find ways to benefit as an individual and as a business owner or worker, the more you will enjoy
yourself. Could that be the reason we’re all here in the first place?
And when it comes to sustaining your social media strategy to grow your business, which of these
two options do you think will last?
Social media is a painful mission and I am going to drag myself through it each day because 1.
there may be a benefit to the company somewhere.
Social media is an exciting opportunity for me to engage people online and spread messages 2.
virally, to learn from my peers and my customers, and to stay on top of my game in my field.
Moving right along…
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part 1 - understanding social media
The secret of social media is that it is not about you, your product or your story. It’s

about creating value for the communities that happen to include you. If you want to
make a positive impact, forget about what you can get from social media, and start
thinking about what you can contribute. Funnily enough, the more value you create for
the community, the more value they will create for you. Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media.
what is social media?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the park for the last few years - without anyone to talk
to and without an internet connection - you’ve probably heard of Facebook. It’s a key example of
social media.
A quick definition. Social media is a phrase that describes the platforms and other tools that
connect people into social networks (of their choosing) online. Some of the household social
media names worldwide (other than Facebook) are MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube. There are
many, many more, and we’ll look at some of them in detail in this report.
The individuals that make up these online networks, use social media to organise themselves
according to (1) their interests and (2) their preference for the way they choose to share, store
and deliver information within their community (or “network”).
Individuals have made it clear they wish to connect with other individuals that they choose to, in
the way that they choose to, and around topics and for reasons that they choose to.
The individual is at the centre of the social media revolution. And this is changing the
way business is done. Hint: kiss goodbye the idea of solely hiding behind the company PR
department door and sending out anonymous press releases “in the name of the company”.
Delete delete.
are all social media the same?
No they aren’t. Most sites are a combination of four elements - text, images, video, and audio.
Many sites focus on just one of these elements. Youtube, Viddler and UStream.tv are examples
of video sites. They also allow text descriptions, images (e.g. a photo of contributor) and audio.
Despite these peripheral elements, they are still known as “Video sites” and video is their core
offering.
There are also photo sites, such as Flickr, SmugMug and many others. See the diagram that
follows here for a comprehensive view of the key categories with examples.
Brian Solis is one of the “godfathers” of social media and was jointly responsible for constructing

the following diagram that details the main social media categories and some of the main players
in each category. Look for the link to Brian Solis’s blog in the resources section.
“
”
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part 2 – social media and my business
Here’s a quick revision of the three keys to social media success described in the “About this
Report” section earlier.
key 1 – If you are not clear on your core business goal(s), nothing you do will help you realise
them (including social media). Get clear on your business goal(s) right now. Set goals that are
measurable.
key 2 – If your “main” website is not optimised to get every visitor to your site to take the
action that you want them to, you simply have to sort that out. Optimise your main site, and keep
it optimised in a way that directly supports your company goals.
key 3 – Your engagement in social media will open new paths to your main website door.
Social media sites will act as “feeder” sites to your “main” site. Bear this in mind as you engage.
Before we begin the ten step plan to get those three keys into action, here are some final
thoughts and details to smooth our way.
How can your business benefit from social media? How do you align your social media goals with
your business goals? Why is your website optimisation so important?
how can my business benefit from social media?
The individuals that buy and use your products and services are having conversations within their
social networks right now. Some of them are discussing your products and their experiences of
using these products and services, returning them, breaking them, loving them…
Some of them are discussing your competitor’s products and services and what they love and

loathe about them. Others are discussing your market place, what they really want, what they will
pay good money for.
By engaging and participating in conversations in your business’ social network you are going to
add value, show that you care, handle specific issues that come up, and in that way build your
credibility and reputation as a caring and in-touch company/brand.
People will begin to like and trust you. When you then share details of a special offer some
people will click through to look and some will buy. When someone tweets about the shocking
service they experienced trying to return your product, someone will reply with their positive
experience.
By listening, you will find out how you can best package your product, deliver it, support it,
charge for it etc. Your network will tell you and you will be able to listen in while two or more
members in the community discuss it publicly.
Once you have become an engaging and contributing member of this particular network, you can
then introduce new topics, and begin to co-create information that the community engages with.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet…
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how do I align my social media goals with my business goals?
In a nutshell, you are going do this by knowing what your company goals are right now. You’ll be
driving increasing numbers of people to your “main” website so it will need to have a clear call to
action and be optimised for your chosen keywords.
If you want to raise brand awareness, then have useful information and cool things about your
offering at your website. If you want to increase sales of a product then feature that product on
your website prominently and have a clear call to action (in this case – click here to buy).
Because much of the social media you will be engaging in will serve as “feeder” sites to your
“main” site, you may only have one shot at converting a visitor into a prospect, or a customer
into a repeat customer. Social media will get visitors there, so pre-sell them as much as possible.
Social media will help you here in two ways. It will spread links and good vibes about your main
site and people will click directly from articles and tweets and posts to your website.

The second way it will help you is that all of the incoming links to your site - that have spread
around the internet - will increase your ranking on Google and the other search engines.
To locate your social media strategy properly within the context of your business, try sketching it
out freehand if you don’t want to use software to do this.
Here is a diagram I recently sketched for a client to map the flow of people to their main site -
and through their sales and retention process as well. The more integrated the diagram is into
your complete business flow, the better. It includes social media as well as all other avenues for
this specific business.
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why is my website optimisation so important for social media?
Part of the optimisation of your main site (website or blog) is to have a set of keywords and
phrases that you have identified, and that your prospective buyers use to search for you on
Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. If you have not optimized your website for specific
keywords, look under Resources at the end of this report for links to sites designed for this
purpose. It is essential.
You will be engaging in conversations around your keywords and keyword phrases, and the more
they beat a path to your website door the better.
Let’s say for example that you are an online tax consultant. When anyone types in the word “tax
return” you want the search result linking to your website to be displayed as near as possible to
the top of page one on Google results.
Social media plays a decisive part in Google’s decision as to how relevant your website is to the
term being searched for – and as a result, whether to put you on page one or page 101 of the
results for that word/phrase.
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the ten steps to get you there.
Ok, let’s get cracking with your social media path (roadmap) to success. We are shifting now from

theory into the nitty gritty detail of how to craft and implement your roadmap.
The ten steps you will take to succeed in growing your business with social media start here. An
explanation of what you will need to do in each step is detailed below. The working document
(roadmap) that you must fill in is at the end of this report. These are intended to be used
together – i.e. read the steps below and write the details for your business on the attached
roadmap document in the spaces provided.
step 1 – define your company goal
There are two kinds of goals that fall into this category. Let’s call them the big picture goals, and
the second let’s call the immediate, operational goals.
Let’s take an example. Your big picture goal may be to be the market leader (by sales volume) of
all new solar panels for households in your city – be that Rome, Vancouver, Melbourne, Maine
or Cape Town. Or you may aim to be the market leader in your province or state, or even for your
whole country. Be specific and be realistic. You intend for this to happen within the next 18
months.
As part of your big-picture goal you also aim to stock the widest range of quality solar panels for
households of any supplier online, or in your city (if you have a store) or in your country? You get
the idea. The same applies whether you offer your product and service online, offline or both.
What we are interested in for this stage of planning our social media strategy are the immediate
or “operational” goals you have in order to realise the “big picture” goal(s). Make these as
specific as possible. The more concrete they are, the easier it will be to measure your success.
For example, in order to maintain the status of market leader by sales volume of solar panels, we
could focus on providing excellent service, including after sales service. The rationale for this is
that the happier our existing customers are, the more they will buy future panels from us and the
more they will spread the good word about us to their networks.
Still using our example, we will minimise the number of product returns by offering active
support in troubleshooting and problem identification as soon as an issue is raised by a customer.
This will help reduce the number of returns due to incorrect installation or other factors.
Fill in your main goal(s) as well as the secondary goals that support them under step 1 of your
attached roadmap document. If the goal is not measurable in some way, you will want to refine it
until it is. How will you know when you achieve it/them?

step 2 – define your website goal and specific call to action
If you do not have a website that is the online “home” of your company it is going to be a lot
more difficult to leverage your social media engagement. You may still benefit from a social
media campaign without a website or blog, but we’ll focus here on having one.
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Some people prefer to have a blog as their main “home” site. This works well for individuals who
essentially are their brand and they are seen as “being” the company.
If you do have a website it should be optimised in two main ways. The first relates to getting
people to your website and the second is what action that person takes when he or she gets
there.
goal 1: getting people to your website
Your site (blog or typically html-type site) should be optimised for search through search engines
(SEO). What this means is that when someone types in the search term “solar panels for homes”
your main website should appear on the first page displayed by Google or any of the other search
engines that people in your target area use.
You begin accomplishing this by selecting the keywords and keyword phrases most suited to
your business or specific products. These are also the keywords that have the greatest chance of
resulting in a visitor following your desired call to action. You then optimise your website copy
and the information on your site for those keywords and phrases.
This is not a complicated process but it does require specific attention to detail that I cannot do
justice to in this report. Look for links in the resources section to information on how to do this or
where to outsource this to.
Each website and each web page on the internet has a “ranking” given to it by Google and other
search engines. Google calls this “Page Rank”. One of your goals is to raise the Page Rank of
your website and blog as high as possible.
The higher your page rank the better your chances of making the first page of Google search for

any of your desired keywords. If your own site has a low page rank, the next best thing is to be
linked to and linked from other websites that have a high Page Rank. The easiest way to do this
and the way that is most in the spirit of social media, is to freely provide superb content in ways
that other blogs and users of information will lap up and use - and in the process link to your
page.
Hint: Most social media platforms have a high page rank.
goal 2: getting people to take action when they get to your website
Once an individual arrives at your site, you want him or her to execute your call to action. If you
want that person to sign up for a free trial of your product or service, tell them so and give them
an easy way to do that. The same goes for getting them to buy a product immediately, or to sign
up for your newsletter by entering her name and email address. Be clear and explicit. Make it
possible for the person to do what you ask them to do with the least amount of fuss, with as few
clicks as possible.
It won’t hurt to have a free scan of your website to see how well the basic design and SEO factors
are handled. Go to , enter your url and see the detailed results. No
Charge.
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step 3 – listen to what individuals are
saying and where they are saying it.
One question before we get online and start listening is this: “what are you listening out
for?” Ask yourself that regularly throughout this listening stage and for all your social media
engagement.
Here are four things that will guide what you will listen out for. Fill them in on the social media
roadmap document.
They are (1) your company name, (2) a description (maximum of three) of your marketplace, (3)
the “types” of products or services you are promoting

(e.g. solar panels, photovoltaic solar panels) and (4)
the brand names of your products or services (e.g.
Rainbow, Green Queen and Top panels).
Armed with this, begin listening to what is being said
online right now. Do this first – sign up for Google alerts.
Go to and log in.
You will need to sign up for a Google account, which is
free. Do it. There are many useful tools offered by Google
for free, you can use your single account with them to
log in to any of the services they provide.
Once you are signed in, enter your company name as a
search term. If your name is two or more words, be sure
to click on “Advanced search” and then type the phrase
into the “With the exact phrase” field. If you are doing
a search for a specific area, then enter the city, state, or
country in the field further down: “Return only articles
about a local area”.
Select email every day. If that becomes too much in the future, just log in and change it to once
a week.
A second Google search you should do right away makes use of Google’s (surpisingly little known)
feature called “Show Options”. To get to this feature first type in your search term at Google.com
and hit Search.
The first results will appear and so too will the “Show Options” link at top left.
If you find that the conversations
around your keyword or key
phrase are not related to buying,
then try adding an “action” word
to the phrase.
For example, if you are not
having luck with the term “solar

panels”, try “buy solar panels”
or “buying solar panels” and see
the difference.
If you are not having much
luck with your company name,
try “Dragon Mist products” or
“Dragon Mist service”.
idea:
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Click on the “Show Options” link and the options will appear down the left of the screen.
Start your listening by clicking on the videos, forums and reviews links and see
what the first page results are. Do this for each of your keyword phrases as well
as for your company name and product brands.
Google has been focusing on real-time search recently as this was never
previously their strong point. The “Any Time” options now allow you to search
for results that were posted in the last 24 hours and often more recently than that.
Twitter (advanced) search is our next stop. It is one of the busiest and buzziest
connectors of people to information out there at the moment. The results will
also give you an idea of what kinds of other social media sites are being pointed
to and are central to the conversation on your topic.
Go here />If you have phrases, then enter the phrase into
the field that reads “Exact term”.
I am currently using a tool called Tweetizen which has a great
interface and allows you to set up groups around the keywords
you are interested in. You will need to have registered your twitter
account to join. Once you have logged in through Tweetizen you
set up a group and easily click between your keyword or key phrase

groups and see (in realtime) what the world is twittering about in
your realm.

Set up RSS feeds. If you already have a Google account simply
sign up for Google Reader. Many people swear by http://www.
feedburner.com which is also good (and now also owned by
Google). Google Reader has two functions that are useful for you
right now.
Once your account is set up at Google Reader, simply click on
the RSS feed you see at any blog online that you would like to
receive feeds from. Google Reader is your RSS aggregator for the
information coming from the sites you choose to follow.
The second good use of Google reader is to find blogs. Once you
have signed up for an account, click the “Add a subscription” button and enter a search term.
Multiple pages of links will be displayed which you can then browse and click through to in
deciding whether you want to follow them via RSS or not.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed of any of them (or just scan them).
Be discerning about which RSS
feeds you subscribe to, which
newsletters you sign up for etc.
Source quality information that
is highly relevant to you and
what you are in the process of
achieving with your business.
It is very easy to become
overwhelmed with information.
If the post, article or idea does
not have a “wow” impact on you
then why subscribe to it?
Some people try desperately

to get the maximum number
of followers and huge email
lists regardless of their
quality. Remember – it’s about
conversions at the end of the
day, not follower or list size.
idea:
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/>It’s worth seeing your keywords and keyword phrases from a few different angles to add some
depth. There are new tools coming to market literally every day, each with a slightly different
search angle.
The key categories of social media search are available as search options in many of the social
media search platforms. Let’s look at one now:


Above the search field at SocialMention there are tabs for you to select any one or all of the
following: Blogs, Microblogs, Bookmarks, Comments, Events, Images, News, Video, Audio and
Q&A.
Also, have a go at



For now this is a very adequate place to listen in.
At this stage do not get bogged down in months of research. Spend time every day listening to
the conversations, and recording them on the Roadmap document. Do this for an hour or two a
day for a week. Patterns will emerge that will guide you to the social media locations where you
will find your people. Depending on the progress you make, you may want to continue for a few

weeks. I suggest maximum of one month for this stage.
step 4 – map and list how it is being said
and who the influencers are
The kinds of things you are going to be listening out for in your tweets, blog post etc.
conversations in your market are:
What are the emotional triggers?•
What lingo is being used (e.g. LOL (“Lots of Love” or “Laugh out Loud”), WTF (work this •
one out for yourself ;-) A tip. If you ever see an acronym that you don’t know simply Google
“what does WTF mean?” and you’ll get an answer. (It sometimes means “What’s This
For?”).
What is the tone of the conversations? Friendly, formal, use of “in-group” slang?•
Are people sharing ideas and activities?•
Are people sharing lots of links?•
Who are the influencers in the community?•
Who are the outside influencers in the community? (E.g. Regulating bodies and activist •
groups that get discussed).
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step 5 – decide on your social media
presence and register the accounts online.
Stake your social media real estate claim now. Make sure you understand the difference between
your company name and your username, as detailed below.
register effectively
If your company name consists of many words – such as
“Dragon Mist Solar Panel Company” - you will need to decide
on a shorter name. DragonMist will be a good company username.
You will enter your company name as Dragon Mist (two words) on
any sign up information asking for your company name. You will

use DragonMist (one word) as your username for that social media.
Use the same spelling and the same use of caps for ALL your
social media you intend to use your username for.
You will be asked to fill in a description of your business and what
you offer. This could be a short description (e.g. the bio space in
Twitter) or a long description. If you sign up for LinkedIn you will
start with your own personal details (mini CV) and then fill in your
company description as the place that you work or the business
you own.
When you fill out the business description, include some of your
top keywords you’ve identified for your business, and make it
interesting. Add some spring to your business description step. If
you are struggling with this, take note of the descriptions you see
while you are listening online and which ones you think are great.
What are they doing? See if you can replicate that energy in yours.
Search here to see if the name you have chosen is taken. One easy
step here.
If your name is taken, don’t panic. There are lots of creative ways
to set up social media names.
Register your name on these accounts because sooner or later you
are likely to use them. It works the same way that registering your
company domain name protects you from someone registering it and using it for their website.
By registering your company name you are not committing to using these accounts immediately.
Importantly, do not link to your registered but unutilized pages in any of your articles, messages,
bios etc. until you are actively using them. You do not want to provide a link for someone to click
through to an empty page.
When you register for the sites that you are not ready to use actively right away (e.g. Squidoo), fill
in all your details and include a link back to your main site. It will not do any harm to link from
these sites to your main site.
Posting is a big subject and

worth staying on top of by
reading good posts on the topic,
experimenting, watching what the
leaders in your community are
doing and by being authentic.
One mistake that many people
make is to write one post and
submit it as is to all of their
social media sites. You may have
a facebook update that is 300
characters long, describing your
new blog post. That is perfect for
facebook.
However, when it appears on
Twitter it is cut off after 140
characters and the link may not
appear. Anyone seeing your post
and is intrigued cannot get to the
post and is frustrated.
Make your post relevant to your
social media site it is going to
appear on. They can still all be
sent from the same platform (in
my case ping.fm)
tips for posting
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Set the intention of using them all and do so when the time is right.
register at:
LinkedIn
On linkedIn you are going to set up your own personal profile that includes information you would
typically have on your CV. LinkedIn is really an online CV profile of individuals.
There will be a space for you to fill in the name of the company you work for or own.
join
Facebook
If you don’t already have a personal facebook account then
you’ll need to set one up in order to get a business page or
start a group. Start by setting up a Facebook Business Page.
You may set up multiple pages, covering different topics or
relating to your various keywords. Great for SEO.
Visit this URL: />
Take a few minutes to decide on the best category for your
business as this isn’t easy to change later. Enter your business
or product name and click “Create Page”.
Add your bio and main website address and your company logo
at the link “Add Information To This Page”.
Now click on your business name that has appeared in the top
left corner of your screen (a hyperlink) and click “Publish this
Page”. Only now will people be able to see your new page.
To finish off, you must click “Add to my products”, and you
become your first “fan” of your business. Don’t skip this last
step or your site won’t go live.
Next, register a Facebook group. You set up a group at the link
below. Choose an “Open” group to allow anyone to join.
/>You will be able to invite friends and colleagues from your
personal Facebook account and elsewhere to join the group.
MySpace

MySpace does not currently approve of accounts being set up
with a purely business focus. To use MySpace effectively you
need to include details about yourself, what your interests are
and make your business a part of this (not the other way round.)
QQ, leader in China, is the largest
social network in the world (300
million active accounts)
Facebook has almost colonised
Europe and it’s extending its
global reach with more than 200
millions users
Maktoob is the most important
Arab community/portal
Myspace lost its leadership
everywhere (except in Guam), but
is still prominent.
V Kontakte is the most popular
in Russian territories (looks a lot
like Facebook)
Orkut is strong in India and
Brazil
Hi5 is still leading in Peru,
Colombia, Ecuador and other
scattered countries such as
Portugal, Mongolia, Romania
(Hi5 is a San Francisco based
Company)
Odnoklassniki is strong in some
former territories of the Soviet
Union

Source: />archives/post_2.php
good to know
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Set the intention of using them all and do so when the time is right.
register at:
LinkedIn
On linkedIn you are going to set up your own personal profile that includes information you would
typically have on your CV. LinkedIn is really an online CV profile of individuals.
There will be a space for you to fill in the name of the company you work for or own.
join
Facebook
If you don’t already have a personal facebook account then
you’ll need to set one up in order to get a business page or
start a group. Start by setting up a Facebook Business Page.
You may set up multiple pages, covering different topics or
relating to your various keywords. Great for SEO.
Visit this URL: />
Take a few minutes to decide on the best category for your
business as this isn’t easy to change later. Enter your business
or product name and click “Create Page”.
Add your bio and main website address and your company logo
at the link “Add Information To This Page”.
Now click on your business name that has appeared in the top
left corner of your screen (a hyperlink) and click “Publish this
Page”. Only now will people be able to see your new page.
To finish off, you must click “Add to my products”, and you
become your first “fan” of your business. Don’t skip this last
step or your site won’t go live.

Next, register a Facebook group. You set up a group at the link
below. Choose an “Open” group to allow anyone to join.
/>You will be able to invite friends and colleagues from your
personal Facebook account and elsewhere to join the group.
MySpace
MySpace does not currently approve of accounts being set up
with a purely business focus. To use MySpace effectively you
need to include details about yourself, what your interests are
and make your business a part of this (not the other way round.)

Lots more detail to help you along your way here:
/>Twitter
Having a separate personal and company twitter account is sometimes advisable. Fill in as much
information as possible on the bio page, including your keywords and market description. People
will find you by searching for keywords and phrases and it helps to have them in your bio. Make
it conversational and don’t stuff it with keywords.
Use a picture of yourself, or your company logo. It makes your tweets much more personal.
Remember – as always – to link to your “main” website.
Signup here: />Delicious
Your bookmarks will be made public and when someone finds your posts and your contribution to
a community useful, they may view your delicious links to see what you read.
Start using it as your bookmarking tool in place of your browser as a good way to start seeing the
value in this service. Select tags for each link you choose to bookmark, that you can then sort
your favourites by.
/>YouTube
Signing up for YouTube is pretty straight forward. Remember to use your business name as your
username and fill in all details including your website link.
Sign up here: />When you have your account up and running and you are comfortable posting videos and
optimising them for search as part of your social media engagement, you may be ready for your
own YouTube channel.

Everything you need to set up your own channel is here:
/>Digg
Press the Change Icon link in the right top corner and now you can upload your pic, bio (“About
me” box) and website link. As with all of your bios, make it memorable, something that will make
others want to click on it.
Digg also does not permit accounts with the sole purpose of promoting company products and
services. You are going to promote yourself as an expert and share information on the benefits of
your products and services.
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In the words of Digg themselves:
Digg is not for commercial use. Please don’t use Digg for selling or promoting products and
services. If we discover that you’re involved in Digging for profit we reserve the right to terminate
your account permanently.
At Digg you will discover, select, share & discuss.
/>Squidoo
Squidoo is the brainchild of internet marketer extraordinaire Seth Godin. Each account is a
“lens” on a particular subject. It is popular and has a high page rank and features prominently in
Google search.
Go to the registration page and fill in all of your personal information. Once you’ve confirmed
your e-mail address, go ahead and create a lens. It will ask what your lens is about and here
enter your main keyword phrase that you’ve used to optimise your main site (e.g. “Solar Panels
for Households”).
Next, select “I want to do my own thing.” Now you are able to name your lens. Enter your
company name, using dashes between each word.
Also pick the category that is most relevant to your business and main keywords. On the next
page you’ll enter the next three main keywords or keyword phrases you have identified for your
website.
Now it’s time to create and edit your lens. For the “Lens Intro Title,” just use the primary

keyword phrase again.
For the description, write up a quick three sentence blurb explaining what your company provides
and use your main keyword phrase at least once. For example, “Welcome to this lens! I am the
owner at Dragon Mist and I’m passionate about green energy and specifically solar panels for
households. If there is anything you’d like to know about solar panels for home use, read on or
contact me…”
There is a lot of information at the Squidoo site to help you get your lens set up, looking good
and with good basic information.
/>Register at other social media sites that your market is using.
In the Arab community that may be Maktoob, in China QQ etc.
do I need a blog?
Can you commit to updating your blog at least once a week?
Can you commit to making time to read and address the
comments you will receive in response to your posts? This
commitment is essential for your blog to be an asset.
When posting to your blog
consider adding an image or two
to your post to add depth and
colour.
A quick scan at a site like
istockphoto.com should get you a
powerful pic you can use. They’re
inexpensive.
idea
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You have two options when it comes to hosting your blog. The first is you can use a free blogging
platform such as blogger.com or wordpress.com. You simply go to the site, sign up, choose the
name for your blog and you are set. There are even default designs you can use. There are some

limitations, though.
The second option – which I recommend - is to register a domain or use your existing company
domain name, with an extension. For example www.DragonMist.com/blog.
There are some technical details to consider here. If your site is hosted on a Microsoft Windows
server, it is difficult to install WordPress or the other industry standard open-source platforms.
If you are committed to a Windows server, one of the easiest workarounds is to register a new
domain (e.g. DragonMistBlog.com) and host that on a Linux server somewhere else.
Of the many hosting companies I have used for WordPress, the
company I recommend most is listed in the Resources section.
Just make sure that the company you choose to host with has
C-Panel. Ask them.
I use WordPress and always have. There are lots of themes
available, both paid and free. Search for them. There are also lots
of useful plugins written for WordPress. If there is one plugin I
recommend it is SEO plugin.
Setting up your blog theme and plugins is something you can
confidently outsource. See outsourcing details towards the end of
the report.
Read this good article on choosing a blog platform here
/>ideas for your blog.
As an industry insider you should have some idea of what the pains of your customers are. What
do they want? What are they searching for? How can you provide this for them through your blog?
If you run customer surveys you could use the most commonly raised issues and questions as a
blog topic.
Ideas for posts can be triggered by posts and information you read online. When that happens,
bookmark the page with your Delicious button on your browser and create a tag for this purpose,
something like “blogideas”. You can then find them all easily when you need them.
Keep a small notebook on you to jot down ideas when they come to you in the shower (waterproof
notebook) or out walking the dog.
Write occasional posts in

response to a popular and
stimulating post you read in your
community.
Reference the article in yours,
and freely reference other great
articles and provide links to them
in your post.
idea
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step 6 – select your posting and tracking platforms (software).
Thankfully, there are many applications available (mostly free of charge), that help with
management of your social media presence. Expect many more to emerge over the next months
and years.
The first benefit is that of having a single, central place from which to post messages and
updates to multiple social media sites at once. These usually also have some level of built in
tracking tools. An obvious benefit is that it saves you having to log into each account separately
each time you want to post something or to read other people’s posts.
Tracking is valuable in that it gives you an idea of what is working and what is
not working in your social media activities. I am going to detail the applications
that I use and have found most beneficial. There are many others and some of
the other ones you may want to look at are and

To fully describe the process of posting and tracking, let’s look at the combinations I use
successfully. They are free to use and excellent tools.
First sign up at and add your Twitter account.
Now sign up at . In Hootsuite, as an admin, click on
“Settings.” At the bottom of the “Account” tab, you’ll see a Ping.fm section.
Here you just paste in your application key.

You can drag and drop the HootSuite “owlet” into your browser and then click on it each time
you want to Tweet about a blog or site you are visiting.
I keep HootSuite and ping open in two tabs on my browser and switch between them. Hootsuite
allows you to shorten links (URLs), schedule posts for later and track how many times your links
have been clicked.
Play around with the two applications and you will discover the many features and the way to
synchronise the two that works best for you.
step 7 – define all metrics – clearly, and measurably
(is that a word?)
The first metric relates to your business goals/objectives. In our example company, Dragon Mist,
the goal is to be the best selling home solar panel supplier by volume. How will you know if you
have succeeded?
One source may be a green household survey done every six months and available for your area.
Other data? If you cannot measure your business goals and objectives, rework them until you
have clear means of measuring them.
Let’s look at the goal “Reduce the number of monthly returns by 15% within six months”. This is
measured in our example by recording the number of returns monthly. Stock take is done on the
21
st
of each month and results available by the 25
th
, from stock control department.
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Let’s look at your website. Your goal could be to increase conversions of people providing their
details for a free “Green power household assessment” with one of your consultants. A follow-
on goal could be to convert 35% of those prospects into paying clients within 3 months of their

contact.
When it comes to website visitor tracking, many people use Google analytics. I prefer
Statcounter. Sign up for free at either one, insert some code they provide you onto each page
of your website and you are tracking. They cover all the metrics you will need. Unique visitors,
repeat visitors, entry and exit pages, conversions and a few other things.

With regard to each of your social media accounts, the manner in which you track your progress
depends on your goals.
If you have chosen something with less concrete measures, such as “raising brand awareness”,
you will not be focusing on tracking the number of links opened in your posts, or clicks through
to your blog. You will search for your brand name in twitter search and other media search
tools (such as social mention). You will be seeing how often it is being mentioned, whether the
mentions are positive or negative, and what the context of the mention is.
If you are aiming to drive people to your blog to pre-sell them before sending them on to your
website, you will track visitor metrics. You will also track the number of click throughs that come
from your various social media, each of your posts, and what the click ratio is.
For example, you may have links to a key blog post of yours in six different social media. You can
track whether the bulk of the links came from Twitter, Facebook, Delicious etc. You can also see
which of those visitors went on to click through to your website. This will tell you which of your
social media is providing you with the most clicks to your blog, and which is providing the best
rate of click throughs to your website.
The point is that the clearer you are about what action you want every follower or reader or friend
to take in every one of your posts, the easier it will be to track them.
It is often useful to map your social media out on a piece of paper and draw the flow of
information and visitor interest with directional lines.
Other metrics you can look at are subscribers, fans, page views, links and bookmarks.
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step 8 – listen, engage and grow your network
This is where you jump in and start listening through your own social media accounts, and begin
growing your network. Now you begin to actively listen to what is going on in your community,
and start engaging.
LinkedIn
Once you have all your information entered, you can import
your contact list from your email programme and see which
of your contacts are on LinkedIn. Invite them to connect with
you.
Join a few groups linked closely to your product or service. Click
on Groups and enter your keyword/s. For “solar” there are well
over a hundred groups. Each has a short description so you can
join the groups with the best fit to your interest and goals. Here
are some of the first groups I found on a search for “Solar” that
are relevant to our business example.
Solar Energy Network (3300 members)•
Global Renewable Energy Network (GReEN) •
(2200 members)
Solar Energy Consultants (2200 members)•
Asking relevant questions within each group and answering other people’s questions can raise
your profile as an expert and give you the chance to mention what you sell. This is not for
hard selling, but you could answer a question, saying ”As someone who sells solar panels to
households in the Christchurch area ” Anyone wanting to find out more about you can click on
your name and see your full profile, including a link to your main site.
Be creative. Grow your network. Think laterally. See what the group leaders are doing and work
out what their strategy is. Experiment.
Twitter
Post a dozen or so posts before you start following significant people you have found. People you
follow are notified by email that you have followed them and they will frequently click through to

your profile to see who you are.
Follow me at />Things that they will look at are your bio (are your interests compatible) & your follower number
rations (are your follower numbers the same as or greater than your following numbers). They
will also have a look at your last dozen or so tweets and see if they are interesting and they may
check one or two links to see the quality of the information you are peddling.
There is software that automatically finds people for you to follow, and then follows them on your
behalf. It will then check to see if that person has followed you back, and if not will “un-follow”
that person for you. This is mostly to keep your number of followers and number of followings
similar. I don’t use software like this.
To get the maximum number of
people to click through to your
desired destination…
1. Offer something of value
(always). That could be a
genuinely valuable offer,
well written, clear and
relevant article etc.
2. Be authentic.
3. Engage and show your
personality.
4. Don’t hard-sell.
idea
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The downside of having thousands of followers is that it becomes noise and you lose the ability to
see the tweets of the key people you want to hear from.
Read around on blogs about setting up Twitter and make an informed decision about how you are
going to approach each aspect of tweeting. My suggestions is start slowly and build more quickly

as you naturally gather momentum.
My suggestion is that you experiment, track the results of each experiment, and then continue
with the aspects that best translate into results you want.
Facebook
By participating in the top three groups you have joined on facebook in a similar way to LinkedIn
you will find members that you will want to invite into your network. Once you find someone
you want to invite you can start a private conversation with them and then make friends when
appropriate.
step 9 - use diverse social marketing strategies to
get your engagement buzzing & track results.
Ok, you are up and running and have more than enough to get started and succeeding. As you
explore social media you will discover new social media that you may want to register at. You’ll
find new blogs and new ways of posting and leveraging these for incremental improvements.
Here are a few marketing strategies that you can use to seriously ramp up your social media
profile, get new targeted followers and increase your search engine ranking all at the same time.
Don’t underestimate the power of these four marketing channels and leverage their simplicity.
article marketing
This usually has a gradual filtering through the various social media and then linking into your
social media cloud or directly to your website. It, however, lasts for a long time and is worth
doing.
Will the person reading this learn something new? Will they trust you more from reading your
article? Make sure the answer to both is yes.
See if you can use a current news event or trend to weave your story around. With solar panels for
households and green energy, the trends to piggy back on will include global warming, electricity
blackouts and eco-living.
Select one keyword to focus the article on and use it a few times (2-3% of article word count)
throughout the article. Select a different keyword or phrase to focus on for each article.
First prize is to slightly rewrite three versions of the article, using different phrases, and submit
each to a different directory. If you don’t have the time to do this then submit the same article to
the different directories.

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