We use Wikipedia to investigate niche communities that could host influencers for our clients:
List of social networking websites – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
When you’re active on social media, use icons to let your website visitors know. Some fun icon styles: Mega Collection of the Best Free Social Media Icons. Another resource: Add to Any.
Ping.fm allows you to post to multiple (but not all) social media sites. Be sure your posts are relevant, which means you should observe the community first.
If you’ve decided not to use social media, you should secure your brand name as often as possible: KnowEm
HowSociable scores your (or others’ … see where your competitors are) social media and web presence.
A branding agency partner uses Posterous as another blog. You can post via email.
We all know about LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Twitter has tons of helpful overlays, in addition to popular aids like HootSuite and TweetDeck.
Get listed with your peers, boosts your image as an expert: Twibes.com
I’m a big fan of GeoChirp: Search for relevant terms like “America’s Cup” or “sailing” and who’s Tweeting within 200 miles of any location.
bit.ly Not only helpful to spread links on the web (preserving precious 140 characters in Tweets), but see metrics, too. For example, I know 231 people have clicked the link about Newport’s America’s Cup bid within the past 30 days. It even tells me whether they clicked from Twitter, email, LinkedIn, and where the world the clicks came from (Korea, Japan).
Another tool to measure your reach on Twitter, Tweetreach reports 4,565 impressions have been made by AmericasCupNPT, the Twitter campaign I’m running.
Fun times with Twitter Grader: Tells you how you stack up against your physical neighbors; Sue_DesigEditor ranks 17th in Newport. It’ll also advise on what you’re doing wrong. Sue_DesigEditor gets a 96%. AmericasCupNPT gets 78%, not bad for a couple weeks.
And, if you need a little inspiration, check out this Mashable article:
5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media
Remember: Make your profile names easy to remember & on-target with your brand identity.
Much more advice and info available at Blog.DesignatedEditor.com or send me a message on Twitter, LinkedIn, or to Designated Editor’s Facebook page.
Such a pleasure to lunch and chat with y’all!
Suzanne
Designated Editor launches and sustains successful Interactive Marketing strategies. Former journalists, we specialize in developing online communities, bolstering social media, and integrating traditional and online techniques. Current clients include mainstream companies, mobile app developers, event coordinators, and web 2.0 entrepreneurs.
Suzanne McDonald
President & Chief Content Strategist
617 697 6563
www.DesignatedEditor.com
http://Blog.DesignatedEditor.com
[…] Editor’s blog readers may be interested in a post I wrote to recap some of the tools I find helpful in social media strategy, a step beyond LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Here I’ve highlighted some lesser-known tools […]