Georgina Laidlaw posted Easy Content Scheduling for Bloggers which clearly shows  there needs to be a plan.  So working from this I need to be blogging about administration, social media … er – administration, social media.  Hmm… I appear to have a blank spot.  You know what – I’ll use the templates as a guideline and go from there.  I like writing about the odd episode regarding my cat “Butch”- he keeps me entertained and would you really only want to read about administration and social media?  I think not.

Let me know if you have a structured plan for your blogs or whether you just bang them out as and when.

One of the drawbacks that can arise when working on-line is that I may not always see what the client does.  I can’t tell what they are  feeling.  Until technology takes another step forward how can I tell if they are they having a bad day.  How will I know if they have just lost an important project or that they are running out of time to meet a deadline?  As wonderful as technology is I can’t always tell from an email what frame of mind they are in.

Charles Green – founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates wrote an excellent article on this  A Customer Service Reality Check

It’s not a new theory and I am sure you will recognise some, if not all, of what he has to say. I have often said to friends, clients and even my children when they have received an email or text message that they don’t understand or misinterpret - “they may not have meant it that way”. However, I am grateful for the reminder that you never know what someone is thinking and it pays not to guess.  A little perception is required.  Listen, ask, and then take action.

Can you relate to Charles Green’s article?

In this blog I want to start building on these themes and explore two more important social network sites that should be considered as part of your overall business profile raising strategy. These are Facebook and Tube Mogul.

Facebook

The rise of Facebook has been phenomenal by any standard and despite some negative publicity relating to parental control and occasional misuse; the site owners have recently tightened up their act and made Facebook an extremely powerful tool. Incredibly, if Facebook were a country it would be the 8^th most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan with approximately five billion minutes spent by users on Facebook every day.

Until very recently I tended to view Facebook as purely a ‘social’ site, using it mainly as a way of keeping in touch with my son who is overseas, and the thought of using it for business purposes never occurred to me. However, Facebook is actually more versatile than you might think and there are some useful features for business and professional purposes that should be considered as part of any overall social networking strategy.

In essence a Facebook page should be viewed as a customisable presence for any business or organisation and therefore as another mechanism to raise awareness of a brand or service. The ‘Wall’ tab can be used as the central point for new information and new content where ‘fans’ can also contribute. ‘Fans’ in the business context are all potential advocates of your brand and should always be considered as such.

The tab structure of Facebook provides the facility to organise information in a structured way so topics like events, reviews and discussions can all be arranged in a way that is easy to navigate. Facebook, like other social networking sites, is all about creating a persona on the web, regardless of whether it is a ‘personal’ persona or a ‘business’ persona. One of the best ways to demonstrate your company’s personality is by using specific applications like the ‘extended info app’. This app allows you to create things like question and answer categories which can be created specifically for business purposes. The key to success is making the content topical, interesting, creative and accessible.

These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, however. The key message is to think creatively of how Facebook can be used as a business tool to attract viewers to your products and services through a communication medium that is easy on the eye, easy to navigate and easy to understand

Tube Mogul

If you are looking for an application to distribute your videos across your various social media sites then ‘TubeMogul’ is definitely worth a visit. In order to reap the benefits of this site you will firstly need to set up accounts with all your existing video sources and then link them into Tube Mogul. Once you have done that you can use the facility of TubeMogul to distribute your videos. So what exactly is Tube Mogul?

Basically Tube Mogul claims to be the first online “video analytics and distribution company” serving publishers who need independent information about video performance on the Internet. It also provides an automated upload to the top video sharing sites currently on the web including: YouTube, Vimeo, Blip TV, DailyMotion and Viddler.

Tube Mogul’s web site states that its analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers an improved understanding of when, where and how often their videos are watched. It also tracks and compares what’s hot and what’s not, measures the impact of marketing campaigns, gathers competitive intelligence, and enables the sharing of data with colleagues or friends.

In my next blog I’m going to take a look at two more useful social networking sites – Ping.fm and Postlater.com – until then, see you in cyberspace!

Don’t forget that if you want any further information on any of the above topics then please do get in touch. On The Go is already helping successful businesses implement their social networking strategies from helping them set up a consistent company profile through to scheduling their media messages giving them a 24/7 web presence.