When I started my weekly blog almost two years ago now, I had two reasons: 1. I just like technology. The commitment I made to post weekly keeps me always on the lookout for helpful tools or tips that I think the small businessperson will benefit from. It also keeps me ‘sharp’ (well, that’s debatable), by trying to be current on the new tools. 2. I was told it would drive traffic to my website, and I wanted that to help me in establishing my VA business.

So here’s a definition of Social Media from the Ebook: Let’s Talk Social Media For Small Business by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value.

John was sponsored by Microsoft Small Business Live in the writing of this book, and is free for the downloading. It’s a great basic book for those of us getting started with blogging for business, and trying to understand how this ‘social media’ revolution works.

He begins by contrasting how we might find in our dusty Marketing textbooks the four P’s of Marketing vs. today’s four C’s of Marketing:

When most of us hear all these new terms about social networking and what services we should be signing up for, our heads spin. So he presents this graphic to guide us in our progression down the social media highway beginning with blogging and ending up with the micro, i.e. edgier tools like Twitter.

The book has several case studies where he makes the point that any business can distinguish themselves from their competition with their blogs, interactions with their community and the resulting establishment of trust among that community.

It’s a good read for those of us who see others talking about the above buzz words and wondering, “what does that mean”.

Below are links to some of the various social media sites as well as the sites that help manage our social media. Some are from the book (and a few of my own), along with their definitions you might find helpful:

Social & Business Networking:

LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com

Plurk – http://www.plurk.com

Tools to Manage your Social Networks & Other Sharing Sites

Delicious http://www.delicious.com this is a bookmarking service that allows you to tag any page with a category and then share it publicly

PingFm: http://www.ping.fm This is a tool that will broadcast your blog, doings, etc. across multiple platforms

StumbleUpon - http://stumbleupon.com/
Flickr – http://www.flickr.com
YouTube – http://youtube.com
Slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net
Digg – http://digg.com
Friend Feed – http://friendfeed.com

Twitter and Twitter tools:

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com

Twellow, http://www.twellow.com/, is like a Twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.

Twitterrific: http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/

Twhirl: http://www.twhirl.org/

Twitterfeed: http://twitterfeed.com/

The book by Jantsch is a great starting place if you’ve just begun experimenting with social media marketing. His Duct Tape Marketing Website could be helpful to you. Another site I subscribe to is the ProBlogger.

I know following these suggestions work because after I set up my Facebook and LinkedIn pages and took advantage of the tools from within these apps to publicize my blog, my readership increased by five to six times. It does take time and effort and the content you publish definitely matters.

If any of you want to share your blogging stories or have tips, please leave a comment!

A natural progression would be to add some audio to your blog or Facebook site. Think of the uses for your business. You could record a short audio inviting contacts to an upcoming training program you’re going to have. Perhaps you want to start a phone-in discussion group on…collaboration tools, outlook, gmail – whatever! In addition to the audio, you could attach text, pictures and even a video to highlight your event.

Here are three free web tools you can check out and get started being a podcaster, the host of a discussion group, or just a listener. All are free.

TalkShoe

This site looks well established. It’s promoted as being a great community-type site. You can join or set up a group based upon your interests. There are about 20 or so categories to look through. If you don’t like one, start one! Up to 250 can be on one call. Tools are provided to help you manage the invitation process.

There is a software download from the site, then you start creating your content. There are convenient widgets and apps for using TalkShoe. Check out those features here. This web tool is only audio. There are widgets for posting to a blog or FaceBook.

Utterz

Utterz gives you a quick and dirty way to post your podcast to your blog or website. A caveat with Utterz is that it works only with cell phones. Something about cell phone companies supporting them…

A benefit of Utterz is that you can set up your account to cross-post – that is, send your post to several sites simultaneously. In addition to audio, you can also email text, pictures or video to accompany your podcast.

Spoink

This site looks a little more sophisticated and business-like than the others. Call a Spoink number from a land or mobile telephone and speak your piece. Send along video, text or pictures from a mobile phone, email or web browser for inclusion with your post and it’ll be inserted in your social networking or blog site for you.

Spoink has a feature where you can make postings private or public. It’s all up to you.

If you are outside the US, you can use Skype-out to call Spoink’s toll-free number to record your post.

It looks like all three give you the option to post your words of wisdom right on their website and you can create quite a following with your podcasts – kind of twitter-like.

If anyone is using or has used these tools, would appreciate your comments.