In my last two blog articles, I discussed getting your organization / business ready for a social media campaign.  I promised to then share my favorite social media tools / resources that will help your overall efficiency.

Social Media Books:
I don’t believe everything I read, but I can tell you, these books are valuable and have helped pave the way for many successful social media campaigns:

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Google is finally adding real time search to it’s search arsenal.  What does this mean to you? It means it’s a good time to start utilizing social media to put your targeted message out in front of the Google search results.  Google will be pulling in live feeds from various social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter & YouTube AS they are happen and placing them within the search results. This is similar to a feature that MSN’s Bing already offers, but obviously, Google has a much larger market share.

Is your business new to Social media? Are you considering a social media campaign? I’ll spend my next few blogs offering some pointers on how to get your business ready for a social media campaign.  Feel free to offer any pointers or suggestions along the way if you’ve been there before.

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So, your company wants a social media presence? Creating and maintaining a social media presence can be quite time consuming, so who in the office should take care of it? The new guy Bob? Bob seems to know what’s up, you’ve heard him around the water cooler talking about Ashton Kutcher and his zany twitter tweets, he seems like a hip and happening kind of guy right? Or maybe Cindy, Cindy the intern just finished up her very first class of marketing at the local university, she HAS to be qualified right, heck, she’s bubbly and knows how to use Google? Maybe Cindy should be in charge of creating a corporate presence and engaging prospects and clients around the Internet social media world….. Maybe not. Here’s why:

I’m sure Bob and Cindy are great folks both with sparkling personalities… But Bob is the New guy.  Cindy is an intern.  Will they be involved in your company six months from now? 9 months? If you can’t answer that question with confidence, Bob and Cindy should NOT be running your social media initiatives. Let’s say that God forbid, we find out that Bob is robbing the company blind or that Cindy the intern is leaving to take a paid job at your competitor tomorrow. Now what? Whose master account was the corporate facebook account started under? Are either Cindy or Bob going to give up their own personal facebook account? What is the password to the twitter account and whose email address is it registered under? So, now you are left with a disgruntled Bob because you fired him and sweet Cindy who is now working for your competitor and knows all of your social media secrets…. Imagine how much damage Bob and Cindy can do with the keys to the kingdom.

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A while back I discussed an encounter I had with one of my Facebook ‘friends’ whose account was compromised: long story short, someone hacked her account and started using the Facebook chat to ask her ‘friends’ for money to help get ‘her’ out of a pinch in Europe.  I quickly caught on that it was not my actual friend, but a cyber crook seeking to steal money.

The more and more popular that social media becomes, the more that crooks find creative ways to exploit it.  Here are some tips to help safe-gaurd your Facebook account:

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As the peer pressure to jump on the social media bandwagon becomes more and more pressing, companies are diving in head first to social media without a plan or any logic. Here are some common annoyances that can turn off your potential Twitter or Facebook followers quickly:

Tom’s Top 5 Social Media Pet Peeves.

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