It seems like every day there is a new social media site that pops up that is a MUST have for your industry. You want to stay ahead of the curve and be professional, but you simply don't have the time to enter insightful updates, witty banter, or hot market tips to every site, every day.
It is important to keep your readers/followers/fans/clients/colleagues intrigued. You want your social media to provide value and not just content. The good news is, there are solutions to help you. The better news is, these tools are free. The best news is, most of them are incredibly easy to use and only have to be set up one time.
Have you tried using RSS feeds or any of the automatic update programs? Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and Facebook all have free programs that allow you to "cross post" status updates or automatically post your blogs. Other programs allow you to enter your favorite news channel sites and have articles automatically posted to your Fan Pages or Blogs. How easy is that?
Here are some of the top tools I recommend:
Social RSS for Facebook
This application for facebook allows you to enter the RSS feeds for your favorite blogs (including your own) and then it will post news stories to your wall and/or fan page, depending on your settings. You can choose how frequently you want updated stories to be posted as well. This provides fresh content to your site, and allows all of your own personal blog postings to be automatically reposted. Your favorite Twitter Accounts can also be entered.
Twitter for Facebook
- * find and follow your Facebook friends who tweet
- * post your tweets to your Facebook profile or Facebook page
- * encourage your Facebook friends to follow you on Twitter
(Facebook offers a simple, one step connection to twitter without all of the above additional features by going here: http://www.facebook.com/twitter/)
Connect your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts - display your LinkedIn User profile or Company profile on Facebook.
This is an application for Facebook, for your Desktop, and for your browsers, depending on what features you choose to activate.
* Connect to all your social networks and never miss another status update from friends or family. You're connected wherever you are on the web.
* Update your status across all your social networks at the same time.
* All your IM services right in your browser sidebar to easily chat while your surf the web
* Update your status across all your social networks at the same time.
* All your IM services right in your browser sidebar to easily chat while your surf the web
Check the settings tab on your linkedin to set up RSS Feeds and your Twitter
(Be sure to check out the applications on Linkedin, they started out much weaker then Facebooks, but they are growing in strength, usability, and numbers)
With My Flickr, you'll be able to display your Flickr Photos and Photosets to your Facebook friends for them to comment on with or without making them leave Facebook! Find exactly the photos you want to show using simple Search criteria such as: Recent Photos, Tags, Photosets, Favorites, Groups, Interestingness, Date Range, Flickr Privacy, and all "sorts" of other sorting and features. Easily showcase your Photo Search results on your Profile/Page or My Flickr profile Tab.
Check your Youtube 3rd party settings here. On your front page, when you log in to youtube, you should be given the option to have your newest Youtube video content and activities posted in to your Facebook feed for your friends to see. You can also connect twitter. If you are a very active user, make sure to manage your controls so that your activity doesn't over power your Facebook stream.
That is just a starter list of the many, many tools out there to help you cross post and keep your social media sites from looking dormant.
With this new information, I STRONGLY urge you not to become too reliant on just using cross posting and RSS Feeds for keeping your content current. Still log in to your sites to keep the "last logged in" dates current. Add new users and repost, repost, repost!! There is no greater form of internet flattery then to repost a blog, a link, a video, or a Tweet. Make sure to "Like" the occasional friend or client's post on facebook. You don't have to spend great amounts of time or energy updates your sites, but make sure to make the most of what time you are spending there. Keep it meaningful.
And most importantly, if you aren't using the site, deactivate it. All though it's bad practice to not be on these social media sites, it's even worse to give the impression that you can't handle keeping your sites current.
Thanks for reading, and I feel free to share your favorite apps and tools below. I will post more soon. Thanks Again,
Jacy Riedmann
Director of Social Media
Amoura Productions
www.amouraproductions.com
Jacy@Amouraproductions.com
Cell: 402.630.9880
