10 Top Social Media Marketing Resources
On the CD inside our May issue of SUCCESS you will find two fantastic interviews. One is with our 1-on-1 expert Peter Guber, who I have written about before (read here).The other is with social media maven Mari Smith. During our interview I asked Mari to follow up with her 10 most favorite social media marketing resources, and she generously followed through. Below is her list.
Additional articles on social media you might be interested in:
- 8 Shocking (and Hilarious) Social Media Gaffes
- No. 1 Skill for the 21st Century (Part 3 of 3)
- No. 1 Skill for the 21st Century (Part 2 of 3)
- Networking With New Media
- To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Expert Tips about Using Social Media
- Small Business and Social Media
Mari Smith’s Top 10 Favorite Social Media Marketing Resources
There are many online tools I use every day to manage my social media marketing effectiveness. In my recent interview with Darren Hardy for the May 2011 issue of SUCCESS magazine, I talked about many of these tools. Darren asked me if I would put together my top 10 list for readers of SUCCESS. Here they are!
- HootSuite.com—a fantastic free online tool for managing multiple social media profiles, pre-scheduling updates for specific days and times, monitoring keywords and analyzing statistics. Plus, check and reply to saved searches, Twitter lists, trending topics, @ mentions, Direct Mentions and more. Also available as a mobile app, which provides an excellent way to pre-schedule your social updates on the fly. Paid version also available with additional features. (See also TweetDeck.com—an alternative tool to try that is equally popular.)
- Bit.ly—the top link shortening service, ideal for Twitter but equally useful for Facebook and even email marketing to track clicks. Copy your long link and paste into your bit.ly account. Easily make custom links and track how many clicks you get. For example, this is a link to one of my most popular blog posts http://bit.ly/FBforms. Check the raw link and stats for any bit.ly link by simply adding a “+” sign at the end.
- Twitter Lists—easily build your own source of curated content by making a list of Twitter users in a certain field of expertise. Twitter allows up to 20 lists per account, with up to 500 names in each list. You might set up a list for top news in your industry (be sure to add your own name!). Lists can be public or private. I refer to my own “Facebook Marketing” Twitter list several times a day to stay up to date on breaking news about Facebook.
- Facebook Like Button—adding a small piece of code to your website and/or install the Facebook Like Button WordPress plugin allows visitors to your website and blog to share your content with all their Facebook friends. You can change the verb from “like” to “recommend”—great for placing on the top right of an entire website. Also, include the Like Button on all opt-in pages and sales pages for extra viral visibility.
- TweetMeme Button—this is the Twitter equivalent to the Facebook Like Button. Add it to your blog, website, sales pages and anywhere you want to make it easy for your visitors to share your content with their Twitter followers. I love to use the TweetMeme button myself whenever I find great content on the web, as it’s typically already formatted with a short link and the author’s Twitter ID.
- Twellow.com—the Yellow Pages of Twitter with tens of millions of accounts listed. Set up a free account, then find and follow targeted people by searching for keywords users have in their bios. Browse categories and also drill down to cities around the world to find top users in a specific location (see “Twellowhood” tab). Twellow is a great tool for building your Twitter following. (As an alternative, more automated tool, see TweetAdder.com.)
- ManageFlitter.com—manage your Twitter following, unfollow inactive accounts, find out who isn’t following you back and more. Free and paid versions. This is such a fun tool to use and very effective. I haven’t found anything like it out there. (As an alternative, check out the popular tool SocialOomph.com.)
- Echofon Mobile App for Twitter—I’ve tried many, many mobile apps to manage Twitter on my iPhone and keep coming back to Echofon. The app offers many great features and is always synched with your online Twitter activity. Check and reply to saved searches, Twitter lists, trending topics, @ mentions, Direct Mentions and more. Echofon also offers desktop apps for Mac and Firefox, as well as a Facebook mobile app; however, I find Facebook’s own iPhone app works just fine.
- Disqus Blog Commenting System—a wonderful addition to any blog, Disqus allows users to have their own portable profile for commenting. Comments can easily be shared with their Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Visitors to your blog can simply post a comment using their Facebook or Twitter account with one-click instead if they don’t have a Disqus login.
- TwentyFeet—an easy and simple way to track and monitor all your social media metrics. You get two social media accounts for free for life. After that, the fee is extremely nominal ($2.49 a year!) for additional accounts. Track your Facebook profile, fan pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube, Google Analytics and more. TwentyFeet sends you a daily email with activity reports as compared to predicted activity based on past performance. (See also SocialBakers.com to use instead or as well for tracking your Facebook metrics.)
Learn 3 years of social media knowledge in 90 minutes: Social Media Bootcamp for CEOs
What are your favorite online social media tools? Share your ideas and resources with the community in the comments below.
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Comments
I’ve been subscribing to and reading my Success Magazines from cover to cover since Jan 2010 and the great information never seems to stop flowing. The May CD was awesome and I love the topic of Connecting vs. Communicating. I’ve been blogging and Tweeting for a little over a year now and I find these resources to be extremely helpful. I’m definitely going to use them to “Connect” better with my audience. Thank you so much for compiling them all for us!
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Darren, I want to take a moment and tell you what happened to me over the last six months. I first learned of you in September 2010 when I attended my first national ACN training in Charlotte. You interviewed Mr. Trump and me and my 65 year old dad were very impressed. I signed up for the business assistant and started to receive Success magazine monthly and I love the audios.
I was thrilled to have the opportunity to bring my 17 year old son to charlotte agin in february so he could
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Bob Coderre Reply:
April 8th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Hear you. Just finished the compound effect and wanted to let you know I an starting to take action! Very excited. Hope to be able to keep you updated on my progress and I really appreciate all you have done for me and my family. Thank you!
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Darren Hardy Reply:
April 8th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Wow, thanks for sharing your story with us, Bob! LOVE hearing these! And I’m so glad that you have made SUCCESS truly a family affair. Kudos!!!
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It’s wonderful to know I use some of these . . . now to look into the rest.
Thank you for posting.
I’d like to post to my site and link back to you, okay?
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Darren Hardy Reply:
April 11th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Sounds great, Jenny. Thanks!
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Mari is great! She shares some very valuable information that has helped me go from being a standard social media user to becoming a semi-pro. Her webinars are always good, informative and fun. I am proud to say that the majority of the items listed, I use regularly to help better my social media experience.
Also would like to give a big thank you to SUCCESS magazine for once again putting together a great issue. Your magazine is helping us all reach the goals we want to achieve.
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Darren Hardy Reply:
April 11th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Agreed, Donald! Mari is always full of great tips and resources.
And Thanks!!! I’ll be sure to pass along your kudos to the team.
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I enjoyed this article. I also enjoy your articles Darren! Hope you guys do another one day Success conference again.
Keith Johnson
Keith Johnson has a free “The Art of turning Dreams into Realty” eBook and a one hour seminar download. Free Confidence Building Resources
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This was a great article. I hope you guys do another one day Success Seminar in the future!
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I personally love Hootsuite, and have used it for quite some time. One of the free services for sharing articles on several sites at once, that I enjoy, is Ping.FM. I also find that OnlyWire.com is helpful for bookmarking good content.
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Hello
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I love the articles in May 2011 issue of Success. I love the CD interviews. I followed up on the Mari Smith promise to benefit from her golden experience. Thank you!
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Darren Hardy Reply:
May 16th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Thanks, Kim!
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Thanks for the resource list, i have been using Echofon for quite a while now and was quite impressed with the new features it offered
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