Social Media Management & Life Mapping Tools: Mindmeister Idea Mapping

Have you ever had that ‘overwhelming’ feeling caused by so many ideas forcing their way around your head that you don’t know where to start?

Have you ever experienced ‘writers’ block’ or an absolute emptiness, when it comes to a project?

Are you ever ‘intimidated’ by a skill, process or application that ‘you’ know should come more easily to you?

All three of these situations are clues that you are being sabotaged by your greatest ‘potential’ enemy--your mind.  The mind is a dangerous neighborhood; it is capable of so many more things than our bodies are capable of.  This power can be used both productively as well as destructively.

I used my ‘mindpower’ productively by attending Professional Networking on the Web, “Using Mindmaps for Project, Training & Collaborating.  After an opportunity to introduce ourselves & networking with very interesting entrepreneurs, such as “Dragonfly Thinking” author, Bruce Oberhardt, we proceeded to learn how to use Mindmeister.

According to Wikipedia, MindMeister is an online mind mapping software that allows its users to visualize their thinking.  "A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information....it is often created around a single word or text, placed in the center, to which associated ideas, words & concepts are added.  Major categories radiate from a central node, & lesser categories are sub-branches of larger branches.  Categories can represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items related to a central key word or idea.”

Our ‘single word or text’ was “Thinking.”  Once we established this central theme, a flood of ideas began to be voiced.  As I mentioned, the room was filled with intelligent, creative & energetic minds.  We learned how to use MindMeister by, actually, using it.

I learned several things from this morning’s meeting:

**Next time, take a picture of our group!

**One of the most effective ways to learn is TO DO!

**Stay out of my head; dare to take the next step.

**Awareness is the first step towards progress (I was AWARE that I was intimidated to attempt MindMeister on my own).

**The next step to progress is to do something (I committed to Martin Brossman & Whitney Hill's meeting  as soon as I found out about it.

Professional Networking on the Web  is a business & training group for the business professional who wants to keep ahead of their competition by using both interpersonal & web based strategies.  Members of the group provide education on the latest techniques to both find & attract ideal clients, along with helping each other directly with networking.

I am thankful to have a forum to stay on the ‘cutting edge’ of technological tools as well as a fun way to connect with other ‘internet’ users on a personal level.

Call me at 919-604-0104 or email olgamaria3@aol.com for your own, customized Social Media and Online Marketing Evaluation.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe 919-604-0104 olgamaria3@aol.com 

Connect to me on Google+ and LinkedIn 

Connection Over Privacy

Understand that you don't have to like it.  The World has voted and the vote is, "I will give up some information, about myself, in order to be connected."
1/7 of the world is on Social Media.  It's either, learn how to surf or be eaten by the waves.


Purchasing decisions are made based on reviews verses marketing.

Social Media Tools: Class 4 of Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success

We wrapped up the fourth, & final, Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success delving into Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest.

"Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions & news about what you find interesting...Find the accounts you find most compelling & follow the conversations."

Highlights, for Twitter, include:

**Twitter's strength is with a cause (like overthrowing the government); If it’s big, it breaks on Twitter first & then the media follows.

**Twitter flows; it’s time-based (vs. edgerank);so the time of day for tweets, is important.

**Public & private "lists" are very useful for organizing & targeting your Twitter connections.

**Add hashtags &/or photos to your 'tweets'.

"Instagram is a fun & quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.  Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory..."

Instagram Highlights are as follows:

**"Smart-phone" based & younger audience.

**Pictures with few comments; so use Instagram if you have a business where pictures are important.

**Syncs with FaceBook so you can share something on Instagram & push it to FaceBook.

**Time driven feed.

**Proper use of hashtags makes your topic more visible.

The last, but not least, Social Media Platform---Pinterest--was taught to us by the ‘Pinterest Princess’, Karen Tiede.

What is Pinterest, anyway?

“Where Google provides the best answer to any question that has one right answer, Pinterest provides answers to questions that have no right answer....[it’s] a waterfall view of information, loosely aggregated by vague categories & keywords.”......with lots of colorful pictures!  According to Karen, Pinterest provides you with ‘things’ that you don’t know exist & variations of an item that you are searching for.

Following are the highlights for Pinterest:

**People are on Pinterest to shop.

**Pinterest is interested in spinning the ‘pinner’ out of Pinterest & into commercial websites so as to make a purchase; People from Pinterest spend approximately 25% more time on a website.

** We are visual creatures; we can sort visuals faster than we can read.

** The way to get followers on Pinterest is to follow other peoples' Pinterest ‘sites’.

**You can have as many pinterest accounts as you have emails.

**A board is a collection of images on a topic.

"When visitors find a picture on your landing page that they like, they may pin it to their Pinterest account, even if they don’t engage any further on that first visit. This is like brick-and-mortar people picking up a brochure or a business card from the front desk, only keeping it, and sharing it with all their followers, who can in turn repin in to their accounts, etc. etc. and so forth".

For more information on Pinterest & how to create an image representation of a brand or a business, contact Karen Tiede.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

Material Covered throughout Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success

Treat Social Media like channels on a Television; ask yourself , "Who is  my audience?"  Martin Brossman

As Pat Howlett stated, recently, "Choose the right Social Media Platform for You, Your Business & Objectives."  Get to know each platform (or hire someone who does) & continuously offer fresh, relevant content.  Social Media gives us ways of being connected to the customer in ever-developing channels.  

The core of all this is to wake up; be a reporter & look at your situation with new perspective.

Understand your customer beyond what you are teaching them; move over, see things through your eyes & then move over & see what else is important to them.  If your customers love pets & sports; then include various sorts of media about these topics.  Align yourself  with your customers & offer them content worth their attention.  Once a day is usually enough.

In reviewing what we learned during these four, information-filled, classes; we summarized the following:

***G+- is technological & growing/ progressing/ developing faster than a speeding bullet.

***FaceBook is fun, personal & very active!

***Twitter--fastest moving; use hashtags, retweets & lists!

***LinkedIn is the slower moving social network; extremely powerful for job searches & global connections.

***Instagram is twitter w/ pictures for the younger crowd & is mobile app driven; use hashtags & pictures!

***Pinterest--it’s image driven & for people to find things they didn’t know they wanted until they saw it; window shopping!

***Get noticed, on these Social Media Sites, by commenting on other peoples’ items.

This series of classes provided a solid base of knowledge, in Social Media & how to use it.  The next level of enrollment is the 'official' Social Media Management Training Certificate Program  to learn the concepts, techniques & tools to develop & manage an effective social media program.

As a business owner, "Listen for when your customers are raving about your business & ask them for a review." 

Call me at 919-604-0104 or email olgamaria3@aol.com for your own, customized Social Media and Online Marketing Evaluation.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe 919-604-0104 olgamaria3@aol.com 

Connect to me on Google+ and LinkedIn 

                                                  

Social Media Tools: Class 3 of Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success

Facebook for Business kicked off the third class of Brossman's Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success.  We watched, intently, as Martin delved into the many different options for viewing Facebook posts:

1.  Pay attention to the 'highlights' option (at the top, middle, of your FB Business Page).

2.  Compare your 'posts by page' & 'posts by others'.

3.  Investigate your Fans' interests & get to know them better.

4.  Get curious about your FB fans.  Check out their FB page & find out what they like so you can address their interests!

After a short break, we delved into the LinkedIn Public Profile; this is what you first see when someone’s name is searched on Google.

Here are the useful tips that follow the LinkedIn basic set up:

**Treat your public profile as if you are going to see your best customer; ask yourself, “how do I look?”

**Write your summary in the first person & integrate keywords; these are the the words that your customer needs to hear; not the jargon of your field.

**Looking people up is different than FB because LI gives you "permission granted" to know about people; it shows you who they are linked with.

**Build a network, intentionally,  towards a certain connection &/ or purpose.

**Find groups & interact with them!

**Acknowledge others through endorsements & recommendations.

**The most effective way to get recommendations is to look for people (current &/or past) & give them a recommendation; do it naturally instead of saying “I’ll give you one & you give me one)."

**Learn from what your allies, strategic customers & things you want to be associated with are up to.

**If you’re going to meet someone; look them up on LinkedIn, to get to know them; then, when you meet with them, personally, connect on their personal life & present/ past experiences;   LinkedIn information is ‘permission granted data’.

**Search for specific people/ zip codes & specific professions that are relevant for you to connect with.

**Add video; customize your LinkedIn URL &  your websites.

For specific guidance on following through with these instructions, contact me or attend Martin's next Social Media For Business Class.

We wrapped up this evening's  class with suggestions on How to Use LinkedIn:

**Look up a company for an interview.

**Recommend people.

**Follow specific companies that relate to your profession.

**Invest in your connections through interactions with them--liking & commenting on their discussions.

**Ask yourself, "What makes me a ‘welcome interruption’?" & use this as the guideline to share relevant information with others.

As you can see, by the fact that I only share highlights from the class; the evening was intense & fact-filled.

BEWARE: Procedures don't, always, work out so smoothly as these instructions suggest. My answer to this is--"Do your best and move on." It may come up, later or choose to revisit it later.  In any case, many times the 'glitch' or problem might be solved. In another case, the glitch still exists.  Either way, there are plenty of other issues to attend to!

Call me at 919-604-0104 or email olgamaria3@aol.com for your own, customized Social Media and Online Marketing Evaluation.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe 919-604-0104 olgamaria3@aol.com 

Connect to me on Google+ and LinkedIn 

Gerente de redes sociales bilingüe

El censo de EE. UU. más reciente reveló la presencia de una enorme población de hispanoparlantes en el país: 53 millones. En vista de que esta cifra aumenta a razón de 2.2% cada año, hablar español ha pasado a ser una destreza obligatoria, más que una cualidad interesante. Al mismo tiempo que crece la población hispana en Estados Unidos, el idilio internacional con las redes sociales también se intensifica. Si bien ambos incrementos son independientes, no hay duda de que existe una gran interacción entre la comunidad virtual en general y los hispanohablantes. En este sentido, los servicios que presto como gerente de redes sociales bilingüe tienen un valor incalculable.

Hispanoplarlantes en America

Aceptación cultural

Como gerente de redes sociales bilingüe ofrezco más que el simple manejo de otro idioma. Mis traducciones van más allá del mero vocabulario: abarcan la comprensión cultural, su pertinencia, normas y expectativas. Cualquiera puede buscar palabras en un traductor en línea o en un diccionario; yo pongo a disposición de su empresa u organización las herramientas necesarias para promover una relación positiva con sus clientes. Esta relación, que reconoce e incorpora los elementos de la diversidad cultural, es un aspecto esencial para crear y mantener una conexión entre un negocio y sus clientes.

Destrezas esenciales

Además de proporcionar información culturalmente pertinente para los clientes, poseo las destrezas esenciales para hacer un buen trabajo. Gracias a mi fluidez en inglés y español, puedo concentrar mis esfuerzos en:

• crear textos llamativos y listos para compartir en las distintas plataformas sociales;
• integrar las estrategias sociales de las empresas en los medios de comunicación de su localidad;
• crear, monitorear, analizar y producir informes sobre las tendencias de la comunidad hispana en las redes sociales; y
• desempeñarme como vínculo entre los equipos de comunicación, personas o entidades influyentes y comunidades hispanoparlantes.

Además de estas destrezas culturales y lingüísticas, también poseo los conocimientos como gerente de redes sociales experta que soy. Reconozco perfectamente los beneficios de encauzar y ejecutar iniciativas estratégicas en las redes sociales, la creación y gestión de campañas de rápida propagación, el diseño y mantenimiento de cuentas de alto perfil en los canales, cómo impulsar la presencia social de una marca a través de métodos pagos y orgánicos, y cómo mantener un perfil influyente en todas las plataformas de redes sociales.

Resolución de conflictos y mejoramiento de la comunicación

Un gerente de redes sociales bilingüe es un recurso valioso en el sitio de trabajo: no solo puedo ayudarlo a crear una cultura empresarial que reconozca y valore la diversidad, sino que además puedo ser una herramienta eficaz para resolver conflictos y mejorar la comunicación.  Los problemas de comunicación y los malos entendidos ya no representan una contrariedad si se dispone de un gerente de redes sociales bilingüe. Los problemas en el trabajo se exacerban cuando existe una barrera idiomática. Yo puedo contribuir a resolver conflictos mediante el asesoramiento de clientes y empleados, así como también fomentar la comunicación directa.

Beneficios adicionales

El gerente de redes sociales representa la voz de la empresa o de la organización en las redes sociales, se encarga de cultivar nuevas comunidades y administra las comunidades en línea con una marca definida. Puedo dirigir la estrategia comunicacional de la marca en general mediante la preparación de informes y la conversión de las mediciones en información útil. Asimismo, tengo el compromiso de atraer seguidores y dirigir las comunidades conformadas por estos en todas las plataformas de redes sociales. En conclusión, hoy en día un gerente de redes sociales monolingüe ya no se considera la forma más efectiva para crear y mantener redes sociales que generen resultados importantes. En contraposición, un gerente de redes sociales bilingüe proporciona la pericia cultural y los conocimientos idiomáticos para desempeñar satisfactoriamente esta labor; yo pongo a su disposición ambos aspectos.

escrito por Olga Santo Tomás Monroe   919-604-0104   

olgamaria3@aol.com  Este articulo en íngles

Social Media and Online Marketing Management

Connecta conmigo Google+ and LinkedIn 

Bilingual Social Media Manager

The last US census conducted revealed an astonishing large number of Spanish speakers living within the United States: 53 million. With this number quickly growing by an average 2.2% per year, speaking Spanish has moved from an interesting trait to a mandatory skill. As the Hispanic population in the United States grows, the international love affair with social media simultaneously expands. While the growth of the two is independent of one another, there’s no doubt that there’s a large interaction between the online community and the Spanish-speaking one. As such, the services I can offer you as a bilingual social media manager are invaluable.

Cultural Acknowledgement

As a bilingual social media manager, I bring more than just language skills to the table. Rather, my translations extend beyond simple vocabulary to understanding cultural appropriateness, norms, and expectations. While anyone can look up words in an online translator or dictionary, I can provide your business or organization with the skills necessary to promote a positive relationship with clients and customers. This relationship, that recognizes and incorporates cultural diversity, is essential in creating and maintaining a connection between a business and its consumers.

Essential Skills

In addition to providing culturally relevant information to consumers, I possess the essential skills to getting the job done right. By having fluency in both English and Spanish, I am able to focus on:

• Creating enticing and shareable content for various social platforms;
• Integrating social, community-based media business strategies;
• Creating, monitoring, analyzing, and reporting on social media trends within the Hispanic community; and
• Acting as a liaison between communication teams, online influencers, and Spanish-speaking communities.

In addition to these cultural and lingual-specific skills, I also have all the know-how of an experienced social media manager. I fully recognize the benefits of guiding and executing strategic social media initiatives, developing and managing viral campaigns, creating and maintaining high-profile channel accounts, understanding how to grow a brand’s social presence through paid and organic means, and maintaining an influencer-level profile across key social media platforms.

Conflict Resolution and Improved Communication

A bilingual social media manager is beneficial within the workplace--not only can I help you to create a business culture that recognizes and appreciates diversity, but I’m also an effective tool in conflict resolution and communication improvement.  With a bilingual social media manager, miscommunication and misunderstandings are no longer a cause for concern. When there is a problem in the workplace, the problem can be exacerbated by a language barrier. I can help to coach clients and employees through conflict resolution, as well help promote direct communication.

Additional Benefits

A bilingual social media manger acts as the social media voice for the organization or business, and cultivates new communities and manages branded online communities. By running reports and translating metrics and data into useable information, I’ll help to guide the overall communication strategy of the brand. Additionally, I promise to engage in and lead a community of social media followers across all platforms. In conclusion, a monolingual social media manager can no longer be considered the most effective means of creating and maintain meaningful social media; rather, a bilingual social media manager provides the cultural expertise and language know-how to accomplish the task at hand; I will provide your organization with both.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe   919-604-0104   olgamaria3@aol.com

Social Media and Online Marketing  Management

Connect to me on G+: https://plus.google.com/+OlgaSantoTom%C3%A1sMonroe/posts

Repurposing Content and Content Curation

We live in a digital age, where information is no longer found through the phone book or word-of-mouth; rather, people get their information from the Internet, primarily using search engines such as Google. Because of this Internet phenomenon, having an online presence as a business is the best possible strategy for marketing your company and services. However, not everyone is a natural writer and not everything needs a blog post. Repurposing content and content curation can be a great way to share valuable information to your customers and prospective customers through your website. Here’s how to create meaningful content that’s been repurposed:

What Exactly is Content Curation?

Content curation refers to the process of finding already existing content and organizing that content in a way that’s relevant to your customers or potential customers. Oftentimes, content curation can involve using very similar content but on a new medium, hence the name “repurposing” content, or giving the content a new purpose. Creating high quality repurposed content involves more than just using already existing content, though; high-quality content will also add new information, a new perspective, or new relevant questions.

What’s the Point of Content Curation?

Content curation is a marketing tool that’s used by companies for their blogs or websites. The point of content curation is to provide valuable information to your customers or potential customers by cutting down the time they spend sifting through useless information. By using content curation, you create content that provides important information to site visitors that’s easy to find and navigate.

How Does Content Curation Work?

Content curation has three primary aspects that go into its creation, which are filtering, analysis, and social rating. Each of these three things can be done either manually or automatically, depending upon the technology that you have access to.

Filtering: Filtering is exactly what is sounds like—choosing material (either through personal preference, votes and views from a social community, or due to the information’s relevance) that should be included in future content based on its current effectiveness.

Analysis: Semantic analysis is the process of looking at a problem and finding information and relationships between existing information that answer that problem. For example, if the problem is “How do I explain my product?” then semantic analysis looks at content to ensure that it’s solving the problem by examining the relationship between statements, facts, and sources in the content.

Social Rating: Social rating simply means that the content that you choose for repurposing was chosen based on the fact that it received a high social rating. This is usually used for social media sites, like Facebook.

When you’re attempting to repurpose content for your own blog or website, the most important aspect you should focus on is filtering already existing information, and adding new, relevant content, too. Use hyperlinks, incorporate multimedia, address the problem, and make a schedule for yourself of when you'll be posting.  

Why You Should Repurpose and Curate Content

Copying and pasting old information into a new blog post simply for the sake of having something on your website isn’t helpful—it doesn’t provide customers with any new information whatsoever.

What is helpful, however, is taking bits and pieces of old information and making it new and exciting for those who visit your site/blog. A great example of repurposing content was Martin Brossman’s Hangout-On-Air with David Amerland about “What’s Beyond Interruption Advertising?” When Brossman went to put the information on his blog, it would have been really easy to just transcribe the dialogue. Instead, though, Brossman added new, free content and ideas that he learned in the interview, and organized it in an easy-to-navigate and relevant fashion.

Essentially, your job is to find content that you think is meaningful, and then to explain why it’s meaningful to your customers. By doing so, you’ll be creating a website or blog with a strong online presence, you’ll drive more traffic to your site, and you’ll be providing customers and potential customers with what they need.

Sources

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network-outbrain-partner-zone/6-tips-repurposing-content

http://blog.hootsuite.com/3-strategies-for-repurposing-content/

http://www.fathomdelivers.com/20-ways-to-repurpose-content/

http://www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/

http://mashable.com/category/content-curation/ 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grant-cardone/creating-an-internet-pres_b_642086.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_curation

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe   919-604-0104   olgamaria3@aol.com

Social Media and Online Marketing  Management

Connect to me on G+: https://plus.google.com/+OlgaSantoTom%C3%A1sMonroe/posts

The Merlin Technique

The Merlin Technique

Whether you’re a business owner, a manager, an employee, or just an individual, knowing how to problem solve is an essential part of life. Sometimes, though, problems that present themselves in an organization are much more complex than a simple solution can handle. In situations like these, knowing how to brainstorm—either individually or as a group—is a critical skill. One type of brainstorming technique that’s used for product, service, or situation improvement is known as the Merlin technique. The Merlin technique subjects the problem at hand to a number of hypothetical changes. Here’s how to implement the Merlin technique into your next creative session:

Involve the Group

While the Merlin technique can be done alone, as the old adage goes, “two brains are better than one.” And with that, a whole group of brains is certainly even better. The Merlin technique takes brainstorming to a whole new level, so encourage group members to put on their thinking caps and really get crazy with their ideas. With the Merlin technique, no idea is a bad idea—think big, and don’t hold back.

Get the Proper Materials

Whenever you hold a group brainstorming session, make sure that you have all the proper materials you need. Depending upon the size of employees you have present, divide people up into manageable groups, small enough that everyone’s idea can be heard. Each group should have access to flipcharts or large pieces of paper, individual notebooks and pens, and markers. The flipcharts should be divided into four columns, titled Enlarge, Reduce, Eliminate, and Reverse.

Enlarging the Problem

The first step of the Merlin technique encourages thinkers to enlarge the problem at hand, whether that be the product, the service, or a negative situation. Extend the problem beyond one customer or one malfunctioning piece of equipment, beyond a price that’s slightly too high or an area that’s too complex. What would happen if the problem were magnified to this hypothetical extent?

Reducing the Problem

The second part of the Merlin technique involves reducing everything about the product, the problem, or the service. Just as you just enlarged the problem to a very unreasonable scale, now think about the problem using a much smaller scale. If you thought about a service problem that involvedevery single customer, now think about that service problem only affecting a single customer. How does this change the problem? How does it change the solution?

Eliminating the Problem

In this step of the Merlin technique, ask group members to completely eliminate the problem at hand. If the problem didn’t exist, what would the company look like? Would the problem be replaced with something else?

Reversing the Problem

The fourth step in the Merlin technique is to reverse the problem entirely. For example, instead of your company having to pay x amount of money for a product, what if that product had to pay your company x amount of money? How would that change the dynamic? A lot of fun and creative ideas are usually generated during this part of the process.

Putting Ideas Into Action

You should allow group members approximately ten minutes to work on each of the four sections of the Merlin technique. When everyone’s finished, review everyone’s list as a group for idea that jump out, and work together to create solid proposals from even the wildest of suggestions. In essence, elaborate on the best ideas, and put together a plan of action. You’ll be surprised with just how effective the Merlin technique really is.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe   919-604-0104   olgamaria3@aol.com

Social Media and Online Marketing  Management

Connect to me on G+: https://plus.google.com/+OlgaSantoTom%C3%A1sMonroe/posts

Social Media Tools: Class 2 of Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success

The second of, Martin Brossman’s, Core Competency in Social Media for Business Success class went into more depth on how to build your G+ network by encouraging us to:

**Passionately care & understand customers (&/ or networks).

**Post relevant content by connecting to the real world & how others relate.

**Post relevant content; be a reporter & share quality information by looking through our networks' eyes & ears.


The next topic, Facebook, started with setting the personal & business Facebook page.

Emphasis was placed on the Timeline; You can post events, visuals, text & other media in the past (in addition to the present & future!).

The main points are:

**Facebook gives higher ranking to posts that are directly added (to Facebook) versus a lower ranking for posts that come in via other applications.

**Spread out media, pictures & posts over time instead of putting  them up all at once.

**Claim your personalized URL for a memorable Facebook title.

**Go to the business’ ‘likes’ to see who your ‘likers’ like for more insight into your network.

**A ‘story’ is created when any type of engagement occurs; 'likes', comments, sharing or posting.

**Facebook is watching our ‘affinity for information’  through our engagement on FaceBook. 

**We need people engaging & talking about topics.  Yet, it’s the people ‘watching’ where the new business comes!

**People that sell at a personal level are getting extremely positive results  using the "list" feature by 'honing in on a niche' and serving it, successfully.

**Create events  for added visibility on the internet (this goes for Google+, too).

The main concept that I was reminded of, during this second class; is the importance of being present, in the moment & appreciating each experience as if it were the first.  Each Social Media 'story' is an opportunity to teach by sharing relevant information.  Many times, as professionals, we take for granted the knowledge we've built up in our areas of expertise. 

As Martin says, "People fall asleep to the greatness around them.”   By looking at each opportunity with 'new' eyes; we are able to share facts, ideas & experiences as 'stories, posts & media'.  Thereby, including our internet networks in our 'bank' of knowledge & expertise!

This class is providing a solid base of knowledge for the next level of enrollment into the 'official' Social Media Management Training.  Stay in the moment, appreciate it's many blessings & share via Social Media

Call me at 919-604-0104 or email olgamaria3@aol.com for your own, customized Social Media and Online Marketing Evaluation.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe 919-604-0104 olgamaria3@aol.com 

Connect to me on Google+ and LinkedIn 

How to Maximize Your Presence on Google+: Tips for Your G+ Personal Page, Business Page & Authorship

“It’s a moving target.”  Martin Brossman (in regards to Google)

What is Google+? 

Google+  is an efficient forum for people with like-minded interests to connect with each other.  Your Google+ profile (located on your Google+ Page)  shares details about who you are as well as explaining how others can do business with you.  For example, besides telling about yourself, background, interests and current business involvement it’s helpful to include links, opportunities and alternative places where other contacts can communicate with you NOW.

I say NOW, because we live in a world where ease, convenience and access are essential. Make it easy for someone to respond to their impulse to connect with you, NOW!

When filling out your Google+ Profile:

** include your current employer, what you are doing & anything else relevant to your business/ interests. 

To find prospects, connections and contacts:

** ‘Cruise’ through Google+ (as if you were ‘channel surfing’ through your TV) to find others with similar interests, businesses and activities.

What is a Google+ Business Page?

The Google+ Business page  and Personal Page are different in that the Business page is like a brochure mixed with a business card and the Personal Page includes more about your personal activities.  However, if your profession takes up the majority of your personal activities then you will, likely, experience tremendous ‘business bonding’ through your personal page.

Google+ Business is a local business listing center, introduced by Google, to replace Google Place pages.  When consumers search for local products and services, these show up in the search results; making it easy for businesses to socialize with customers and prospects and for consumers to find local businesses.

Google+ Local pages integrates with Google Search, Google Maps and Google Mobile Maps.

What is Google+ Authorship?

Google Authorship, as shown on my associate's page, is the next level to the world of Google.  Through Google Authorship you can link content you publish on a specific domain to your Google+ profile.  Sign up for Google+ and create a Google+ profile.

When you set up your personal page, make sure you have the following:

*a profile photo with a recognizable headshot.

*a byline containing your name that appears on every page of your content.

*a matching byline name to the name on Google + profile so that Google will be able to pick it up.  Google is a machine so everything has to match exactly or it won’t work.

The few lines of text that appear under every search result (‘rich snippets’)—are designed to give users a sense for what’s on the page and why it’s relevant to their query.  These rich snippets shows up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) along  with a lot of other information.

Tips to remember:

**Make sure that your face is recognizable.

**Use your real name.

**Use this name across all your web properties.

**Add the Google + icon to your website.

**Keep the same image on your Google + profile face photo.

**Use your real name on YouTube.  YouTube & Google + are connected.  This gives you another authorship page.

Follow these principles across all of your web properties that you are an actual author on.  Adding Google+ website on all your posts, will increase rankings for you. Google+ Personal, Business and post pages will rank in the same way or better in searches than regular web pages.  Also, Google+ posts can keep their ranking without time limitations.

What does Google+ have to do with Branding?

Branding, in today’s culture, is most known for a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service.  Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand.  Personal branding includes people and their careers marketed as brands.  Take advantage of this opportunity to link your Google+ profile (through Personal & Business Pages) to the content that you create.  It’s a very efficient way to maximize on ‘branding‘ and get yourself more visible on the internet!

Call me at 919-604-0104 or email olgamaria3@aol.com for your own, customized Social Media and Online Marketing Evaluation.

by Olga Santo Tomás Monroe 919-604-0104 olgamaria3@aol.com 

Connect to me on Google+ and LinkedIn 

(Footnotes-ideas for this article came from Chris Brogan & Mark Traphagen)