I skipped last week’s post since I was at the TDWI conference for business intelligence last week. It was a successful conference on a number of levels. One huge AHA (more like duh) moment for me was the reaction I got when meeting my social network friends in person for the first time.

Let me set this up with a little background. As you know, I am a content marketer for high tech companies with a focus on BI. I attend conferences to stay current on technology and the software/hardware market. But I also attend for the opportunity to meet with vendors (who are my customers). Where else would you find so many of your customers in one place?

I’ve embraced social networking. I’ve been able to have conversations with so many people I would have never had the chance to meet otherwise. I’ve talked to industry analysts, BI experts, vendors, and peers. I’ve commented on their blog posts and they’ve commented on mine. We’ve retweeted links to great information and tweeted a mix of personal and business thoughts. We’ve connected on LinkedIn and some on Facebook.

But, what really seals the deal is getting to meet these great folks in person. Time after time I heard, “Oh, you’re @BIMarcom! Nice to finally meet you in person!”  I had lunches and dinners with these folks. I got to know them (and they me) on a more personal, intimate level.

An old, but still relevant article from Rider University on cyberspace vs. in-person relationships says:

The human face and body language are rich in meaning and emotion.

We get a lot from our cyber relationships, but we get so much more in person. The face gives off so many cues. Linking these cues to how the words are being said improves communication, even cyber communication. Having talked in person, I can better visualize how the person is reacting during our online conversation.

My relationships have taken a big step forward. Now when we tweet, comment, and post, we have faces for the names. Our communication is much richer and our relationships stronger. When a vendor has a need, chances have greatly increased that they will consider me.

What about you? Are you finding it too easy to hide behind your avatar? Or are you exploring all the ways to get in front of your customer in person?

Socialytics. I love this word – it perfectly captures what it is — analysis of social media. I’ve only heard it used a couple times but when Michael Fauscette of IDC wrote his post, Socialytics, I decided to investigate it further.

I wondered who plays in this space today. Though there aren’t many, there are more and more social media analysis vendors with solid offerings. In his e-book, The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008, author Phil Sheldrake details 16 of them that responded to his request for interviews.

I then wanted to know more about the types of analytics that might be looked at. I liked the way David Bakken broke down social media data in his post, Social Networking, As Seen by the Economist. He looks at these three dimensions as a way to stratify the levels:

Content: Just what is it that is being talked about. Could be brand or product mentions, could be sentiment. What are people saying?

Source: Who is generating the content? How does the content vary by characteristics of the source. He mentions the difficulty of knowing more about the “who” and suggests companies like Facebook might sell that information as a new source of revenue.

Connectivity: Who is talking to whom? This is probably most about influence and the value of networks — something that has proven very difficult to measure prior to social networking.

(…some time passed, and then…..)

I had this thought:  With many of the social networking companies looking for a viable way to make a sustainable income, why not sell socialytics from their platform to interested parties? They hold the valuable key – the data.

BI vendors would do well to partner with social media analysis companies and call on the likes of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to provide this new service as a joint partnership. Not only will all these social conversations create a wealth of data to be managed, they will also require a powerful analysis tool and a presentation layer that is easy to use and understand — something BI vendors are masters at.

Note to BI vendors – socialytics is here. Are you ready?

P.S. As I finish this post I found one vendor already moving forward. Ron Swift from Teradata just put out a timely post, Social Media Marketers Should Get Ahead of the Curve, where he talks about Teradata’s partnership with social media analysis vendors and creating integrated web intelligence (IWI) that combines socialytics with data from the data warehouse creating extremely valuable insight.

Social media is still fairly new and understanding how to connect the various social media tools is not easy. Yet, that’s where the power lies, especially when it comes to dynamic content like blog posts. I’m often asked how to get more exposure leveraging social media, so I thought I’d give you the “101” on connecting, specifically your blog with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

First, this help assumes you have a hosted blog, particularly Wordpress. You can get Wordpress for free and install it on your own domain or site, as long as your site accepts PHP (hosted on unix or linux servers and not Microsoft servers) and you have the ability to create databases. It’s a little tricky to set up and configure unless you have a geek-streak like me. Let me know and I can help.

So, you have a hosted blog and you’re putting out regular posts. How do you let the universe know?

Twitter – Grab your Twitter handle and make sure you fill out your profile, adding your website URL. The rest involves plugins to Wordpress, though Typepad probably has similar functionality.

            Post blog to Twitter – Grab and install the Twitter Tools plugin. It not only notifies Twitter when you add a new post, it can create a blogpost from your tweets. It comes with additional features such as Hashtag, Exclude, and bit.ly URL shortener. You’ll need to get a bit.ly API code so that the plugin will push out your shortened URL.

            Retweet this blogpost – Grab and install the Tweet Meme plugin. It lets readers retweet your posts and also keeps track of how many times your post has been retweeted.

            Show my tweets – If you are successful with the Twitter Tools plugin (above), you will also have a widget that shows your tweets in your sidebar.

            Follow my tweets – I like the Follow Me plugin, used on this site. Stays off to the side and isn’t too obtrusive.

LinkedIn – First create a company page for your business. As you are setting up your company profile, you’ll see “Company Blog” in the box on the left side. Make sure you add your blog’s RSS URL. Now check your personal profile. Be sure you have your company blog and Twitter handle listed there too. As Wordpress notifies Twitter with a tweet announcing your post, that same tweet will show up in LinkedIn as a status update.

Facebook – First, create a personal profile. Then add the Twitter application and fill out the settings with your Twitter handle. Now all your tweets will show up in the live feed, including the tweets containing your blogpost announcements. To automatically post from Wordpress to Facebook without going through Twitter, use the post-to-facebook plugin.

Facebook’s company fan pages are still coming along. For the life of me, I can’t find an automated way to push blogpost notifications. I still recommend you create a company fan page and for now, manually add blogpost notifications.

One last suggestion, add social links to your posts with the Sociable plugin. This gives your readers several options to share your posts for you.

Feel free to add your suggestions. Would love to know what’s working for you. If you’re struggling with this or have any questions, just ask. Together, we can figure it out.

So much buzz about social media marketing (Facebook, Ning, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn), it’s almost tough to separate practical information from the hype.

In reading dozens of blogposts on the topic, I recently came across a post by Mac MacIntosh who writes the Sales Lead Insights blog that made me go “hmmm….” His post looked at the study done by Forrester that was in response to the question, Which of the following sources of information impact your decision making process?”

And here are the answers:

• Peers and colleagues – 84%
• Vendor, industry and trade Web sites – 69%
• Your direct vendor salesperson – 69%
• Technology or business magazines – 66%
• Consultants, VARs and SIs – 65%
• Industry trade shows or conferences (in person) – 59%
• Forums, online communities and social networks – 45%
• Industry analyst firms – 45%
• E-mail or electronic newsletters – 41%
• Web events or virtual trade shows – 40%
• Interactive media: podcasts, video, online demos – 30%
• Blogs – 24%

From that, he says a story in eWeek about this research states, “…while business buyers may be using social networks and other tools in their enterprise and personal lives, Web 2.0 social technology isn’t affecting their decisions when it comes to purchasing business solutions.”

Mac doesn’t offer his own conclusion, but instead asks if we agree, so here’s my take—

People do business with those they know, like, and trust. I know, it’s an old, overused statement, but it still holds true. I believe this is the major reason why social media for B2B (or even B2C) has so much value. It started with relationship selling and has now been expanded into “relationship marketing” through social media. And, given nearly half those asked said their decisions were impacted by social media, really the newest entrant on the list, how can that be ignored?

Using a B2C example, the Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, Twitters constantly about his customers, vendors, and employees.  One of his latest tweets said, “Busy busy day! Didn’t notice any @Zappos employees doing the robot dance at the office today – http://bit.ly/zrobot.” That got me curious, so I checked out the link. Pretty funny and I got to see some of the employees and their reactions. Looks like a fun place to work and fun to do business with.

For a B2B example, look to Lucidera, a software company specializing in business intelligence. They leverage LinkedIn, Ning, YouTube, and Twitter. Lucidera takes the opportunity to share information and product examples, and also maintains a BI community forum. Look these guys up and see how broadly they’ve used social media.

I’ll bet you’re seeing some good B2B examples as well. If the same survey is taken again in the next couple years, I think you’ll see social media rise, possibly to as high as second place. It’s hard to top those we already know, like, and trust!

I never planned to be a content marketer. In fact, due to some criticism from my high school English teacher, I didn’t read or write much for the next 20 years. Instead, I focused on technical work, figuring I’m “just a math and science girl.”

So now that I am writing marketing content for a living (I’ll save that life story for another post!), I get asked all the time how I find new clients.

The answer lies in both finding and being found. Here are the four basic steps to increasing your visibility. There is so much more that can be said about each one of these, so you may see them pop up in more detail in a future post. Anyway, here goes:

1. Establish your niche – Most all of us have had multiple jobs. This gives us a variety of experience, though many of us tend to stay in a particular industry. Whether that is healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, retail or something else, it’s what you know best. Let me just say, it is so much easier to create marketing deliverables in an area that is your comfort zone! Once you have narrowed it down, find out where your prospects go. Are there industry groups you can join? Conferences you can attend? Trade publications they read?

2. Create your platform – These days, you must have a website. It’s like your home base. It serves as your online brochure and helps people get to know you. It’s a must that you post samples of work you have done in your online portfolio. So, once that’s done, it’s time to be a little more creative and show people what you are all about. One of the easiest is to start your own blog, related to your niche. You might also choose to produce a regular newsletter. There are some great (and free) tools out there to get started. Check out Wordpress to get your blog started.

3. Leverage LinkedIn – It is also imperative that you have a fully developed LinkedIn profile. It’s the ultimate online resume. Once you’re comfortable there, search for and join groups in your niche. That allows you to submit articles (even ones you wrote!), start discussions, and learn what others in your group are doing. As for finding and being found, I had two prospects cold call me because they found me on LinkedIn. I also use the advanced search to look up people with “marketing” in their title, and who work for a specific company I want to reach.

4. Twitter with your “Tweeple” – The whole Twitter thing still amazes me. I was one of those nay-sayers who couldn’t see the value. Well, I’m a complete convert now! I found and followed people in my niche area, business intelligence. I was fortunate in that these techie, fairly early adopters, organized a group and collected Twitter handles on a Google docs spreadsheet. Barring that, you can search for people in your niche (try Twello), and not only follow them, but follow who they follow. Start your own collection of niche Tweeple and advertise the list. Now get out there and tweet. Check out TwiTips for more help with Twitter.

If you’re doing these things, you are well on your way and can consider yourself an “advanced social networker.” This won’t guarantee you’ll get new work, but I can just about guarantee you’ll meet new prospects! The rest is up to you.

I’d love to hear your story about how you’ve been able to find new clients.