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Marijean

Marijean Oldham (Jaggers), a social media specialist and public relations professional, is president and CEO of Jaggers Communications LLC, a strategic communications firm based in Charlottesville, Va.

Feb 18
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Social Media Assignment #7: Find Your LinkedIn Contacts on Twitter

By Communications

If you’ve been following the social media assignments, congratulations! You’ve made a lot of progress if you’ve knocked off each of these simple tasks.

This assignment makes a couple of assumptions. If you’re reading this blog, you most likely have a LinkedIn account and, I’m assuming that your LinkedIn profile is complete and that you have all of your contacts entered in to your business social network.  The second assumption is that you have an established Twitter account. If not, you might want to backtrack and hit this social media assignment.

Today’s Social Media Assignment

You may be making an assumption of your own; you might think that your contacts in LinkedIn aren’t using Twitter. Depending on your network, your community, your profession and a number of other factors, a higher percentage than you think may be there. (Statistics estimate between 11% and 20% of Internet users are frequent Twitter users. ) The point is, if your business contacts are on LinkedIn, and you are on Twitter, you want to follow your business contacts on Twitter.

First, you will need to log in to LinkedIn and install the Tweets Application. You will be able to access the application by clicking on More in the top navigation menu.

The applications functions to integrate your Twitter account with your LinkedIn profile. I don’t recommend using Twitter solely through your LinkedIn account, however, it is useful to find and follow your connections.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I am following 1,076 people on Twitter. Let’s look at how many of those are my LinkedIn contacts and if I’m missing following any of them on Twitter.

There are not, in fact, many people I’m not following from the list of my business contacts using Twitter. This tool lets me review who they are and quickly and easily follow those I’m missing.

Feb 17
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The Independent Author and Social Media: A Marriage of Necessity

By Social Media
Editor’s note: I’m out gallivanting (actually, several speaking gigs and new clients to serve this week), so my friend and social media-savvy author, William Esmont has provided us with a guest post. Enjoy!

With the introduction of the Kindle platform, Amazon made it possible for independent authors and publishers to make their work available to the world with a click of the mouse.

Independent authors rejoiced. Then they set about the business of learning how to sell on the web, and in the process, discovered it’s a lot harder than it looks.

Following are some strategies I learned during my first year as an independent author. In isolation, they are interesting diversions. When combined however, they become a powerful machine capable of drawing global attention to your work and building a loyal fan base of repeat customers.

1. Independent author message boards

Web sites like kindleboards, nookboards, and mobileread are excellent places to meet other authors and hone your craft.

2. Twitter

Create an account dedicated to your writing identity and tweet about your experiences. All of them. Learn hash tags and use them to your advantage.

3. Goodreads

Goodreads is like Facebook for book aficionados. This is where hardcore readers congregate.

4. Book Bloggers

A good review from the right blogger can send your sales into the stratosphere. All they ask in return is a review copy.

5. Facebook

Create a Facebook page for your author activities and post in writing-related groups using the new ‘post as page’ functionality.

6. Personal Blog

This is your public face. Link it with Twitter and your blog posts are distributed to the world automatically.

And last, but not least, buy business cards. You never know when the person sitting next to you in Starbucks is a potential customer.

William Esmont lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona. You can learn more about him and his books at www.williamesmont.com.

Feb 14
Love1

Giving Away The Now Revolution: The Social Media Seduction Contest

By Social Media

My friends Jay Baer and Amber Naslund have published a new book about the social web and how it has changed how we do business.

The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter & More Social

I’ve been excited about this book for a long time, since the first time Jay shared that it was in progress and the teaser previews he would “let slip” along the way. Jay’s excitement is always infectious.

I’m also excited because Jay and Amber happen to be two of the smartest social media strategists in the business. I learn from them all the time and enjoy their writing styles and personalities. I haven’t quite finished my copy of the book, but so far, I’m sold and I think you will be as well.

Oh yeah — and did you know that Jay and Amber met via Twitter?

I am lucky enough to be one of the 75 winners who were given a free copy of the book and a second copy to award to a reader.

That’s where you come in. I’m hosting a contest to provide that second copy to one of you, but you’re going to have to work for it.

Seduction Junction, What’s Your Function?

I’ve told you the story before, how Shel Israel once told me that to get people engaged in social media, you have to seduce them into it. (Since today is Valentine’s Day, it somehow seems appropriate to throw around the idea of seduction.)

Tell me, in the comments, what YOU have said, done or shown to other people in your office, clients or colleagues to get them excited about using social media for business. I will narrow down to the top three answers and then let you vote for the top response. All of the comments need to be on this blog to be eligible to win (if you learn about this contest on Facebook or via Twitter, your responses there will NOT count as contest entries.)

The deadline for this contest will be midnight (Eastern, USA), this Friday, Feb. 18, 2011.

I’ll narrow down the best comments over the weekend then host the poll to pick the favorite on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

GOOD LUCK!

CONTEST UPDATE: Comments have been closed. Winner will be announced Feb. 22.

WE HAVE A WINNER: CONGRATULATIONS TO DR. DOLLY GARNECKI!

Help choose the winner of The NOW Revolution  — enter the poll to choose your favorite comment below.