Note that these are strictly from a business marketing perspective. If you are involved in social media for personal fun, then you can ignore all of these (instead focus on some of the personal privacy rules).

1. Have a (really good) website that sells something. It’s simple: if you are engaging in social media for marketing purposes, then you need to have somewhere to send people online (a website) and something that you want them to do (a call to action). You don’t necessarily need to have e-commerce, but you should have a call to action clearly defined on every page of your website (if you don’t have a product to sell, then a good call to action is to call or e-mail you). Without a good website and online call to action, you are wasting your valuable marketing time on social networks.

2. Know who your online customer is. If you don’t have an online customer, then don’t invest marketing time on social media, which is inherently online-based. If you do have an online customer, then get really clear about what that customer does online – where does she spend time? what websites does she visit most? what does she care about? This is Marketing 101, but it’s also easily forgotten in the online world. Remember that in most cases your online customer is very different from your offline customer.

3. Determine where you’re going to focus your efforts. There are lots of social media options out there (i.e. Twitter, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.), and even huge corporations have trouble managing all of them. My recommendation is that you pick one or two social media outlets and focus your marketing energy there. How do you pick? Well, of course you pick based on your answers to No. 2. Go where your customers are. It’s that simple.

4. Establish an online identity. It is best to use a photograph of a person rather than your logo when interacting in social media spaces. This is because people expect to be social with another person, not a logo. For most small businesses, the “face” of your company is probably going to be your owner/president, but it can vary. The important thing is that you identify a single person who will represent your company in social media settings (Note: this person should best identify with your answers to No. 2). Take some good photos and establish a compelling bio that gives both the person and the company a personality, and you’ve got a winning online identity.

5. It’s not about you. The single biggest mistake companies make when using social media to market is marketing themselves too much. Social media is about community and communication, and if you are too aggressive in your marketing/sales efforts, you will be ignored or, worse, booted and ridiculed. Share interesting industry information that your customers are interested in, participate in discussions about all sorts of topics, and share, share, share. In general, you should share and participate in an indirect manner 90% of the time. Only occasionally should you directly promote your company.

If you want to talk to me about social media and how you can use them to grow your business, then e-mail me or give me a call at 310.453.7008.

Best,
Virginia

The Talented Nathalie Lussier one of my Path of True Balance readers awarded me with the Kreativ Blogger Award. Thank you so much for your kindness Nathalie!

The award asks for 7 things we love, and 7 other bloggers who we think are deserving of the award.

___________________________________________________

7 Things I Love

1. My Loving and supportive family.
2. My brilliant and talented friends.
3. My amazing coach who never ceases to amaze me, make me laugh, and help me grow.
4. Fond memories of my time spent traveling in Germany, England, Bruges, Scotland, France and Luxembourg.
5. Connecting with other like minded people through twitter and various social networks.
   
6. Luscious Living through yoga, meditation and extreme self-care.
7. Teaching people how to honor their mind, body and soul on the path of true balance.
   

7 Deserving Blogs

1. Joyful Days: Daphne shares her strategies to happiness and experiences that help her focus on daily joy.
2. Living By Design: Ananga shares lifestyle choices that feel good and do you good. If you are interested in natural ways to reduce stress and improve your health – this site is for you.
3. Mom Grind: Vered DeLeeuw, a self described recovering lawyer discusses raising children, finances, feminism, blogging and more.
4. Delightful Work – An excellent blog about doing what you love and making a living out of it by my friend Tom Volkar.
5. IttyBiz – Once you’ve figured out how to monetize your passion, Naomi will show you how to market it.
6. Akashic Secrets – Evelyn is a kind soul, an intuitive consultant and prolific blogger. She is one of the most positive people on the planet.
7. Zen Habits – Leo is an amazing story teller and his blog covers the gamut of personal development. I love This blog!

Shann Vander Leek is the Founder of True Balance Life Coaching and Co-founder of Seize True Success. She is a Coach Training Alliance certified professional coach, and certified yoga instructor. Shann is a prolific blogger, published writer and co-author of the Best Selling Book – Wake Up Women BE Happy Healthy & Wealthy. Shann’s personal style and direct approach have guided and inspired many in overcoming personal and professional challenges. Her background in sales, marketing and client development, along with leading a talented sales force for many years prepared her for the business of professional coaching. Shann inspires women in transition to create balance in their lives through personal coaching, yoga and creative expression. Telephone and email consultations make her accessible to clients all over the world. To find out about her Coaching Programs for Women, call Shann at 231.668.111 or visit www.truebalancelifecoaching.com

Jacob Share on the Personal Branding Blog shared some great tips on using avatars for branding.

First of all, if you don’t have an avatar, get one! I went to http://en.gravatar.com/ to get one for my blog posts.

These are really important for branding yourself. You can use them for your Twitter, your social networks (like Brazen Careerist) and they also show up when you reply to blog posts.

I recently edited a photo to be use as my avatar. It comes out fairly recognizable even as a small image. The extremely small image is hard to see well, but you would recognize it if you had seen it around before. 

One thing I did with this avatar was completely edited out the background. This causes all of the focus to be on me. Since my hair was a shade different during the summer when the picture was taken, I changed the picture to black and white. I think back and white is very classy looking.

Your picture should portray how you want to be perceived. I wanted to look professional, but not still and unhappy like some professional pictures I have seen.

I created this avatar in a basic photo program called PhotoDraw. It was quick and easy and helps create a consistent look for my personal brand.

Rachel M. Esterline works as an account executive for Central Michigan Life, the nationally award-winning school newspaper at Central Michigan University. She is as an account executive for PR Central, CMU’s student-run public relations firm and as a public relations executive with the Student Government Association. Additionally, Rachel serves on the executive board of the Public Relations Student Society of America at CMU and has completed a seven-month internship with her university’s public relations and marketing department. Rachel will graduate in May 2010 with a degree in public relations with minors in journalism and communication.

Last Friday, Monica O’Brien of Twenty Set wrote about how blog networks sucked and that there wasn’t any advantage to being part of one. I disagree and this post is my response.

Here are the four universal truths about blog and social networks, and how to use them to your advantage:

1. Network means it’s not just about you. Social media by definition is social and is thus a give and take world. Traffic will not magically be sent to your blog, nor will exposure magically occur.

Joining a network – whether that be a blog network like Brazen Careerist, a social network like Facebook or Twitter, or the professional network LinkedIn – doesn’t mean that all of sudden things will be easier for you. Really, it only means that your work has just begun. Hard work.

I mean, I get it. I’ve been there. We think that since we are letting networks have access to all of our writing – words that we have toiled over until 2:00 am and let sit until 2:37 am just to feel motivated and confident enough to even publish – that we should reap grand rewards. That just by giving away permission to our soul, great things should happen. I’ve been there, but that’s not how it works.

It works by not only allowing more people into your world, but by listening to them, hearing them and responding. It works by participating and figuring out how you win with your post and how the community does too.

2. You can’t be found without showing up. A blog network is not your blog. Think of a network as the meeting place – a community house, a bar on a Friday night, the lunchroom at work, whatever. Your blog, in contrast, is your home. You’re the same person – and your posts are the same – in both places, but different people show up and different conversations occur.

If you stay at home, people will find you, but the majority won’t know you exist. Similarly, if you go to the bar and just sit in a corner, that girl is not going to magically give you her number. So you can’t just blog in a vacuum, nor can you join a network and expect that to be the final step if you want to build exposure and traffic. People don’t just find you – you find them.

And that isn’t a theory just for beginners; it’s a commandment for established bloggers. The fact that Penelope Trunk syndicates the heck out of her blog is no coincidence to her success, nor is the fact that Chris Brogan shows up to every social media event imaginable. You don’t stop working ridiculously hard when you’re established. You work harder.

3. Use their network to build your network. A blog network is not promising you a product like cereal, but is selling you on relationships. Before Brazen Careerist started, the sense I had of the Gen Y blogging world was limited; I knew around twenty-five Gen Y bloggers. Now I know and have access to hundreds, not only because Brazen Careerist helped discover those people, but also because Brazen created, inspired and facilitated that particular market to be part of the conversation.

I take advantage of the Brazen network by looking at the community profiles in the same way I look at who my favorite Twitter friends are following, or who my real-life friends and I have in common on Facebook.

And when people comment on a post of mine on any network, I don’t just hope that they subscribe to my blog, I’m proactive. I check out their blog, reply to them, comment on their posts, link to them and begin to build a relationship. I get interested in what they’re doing, because they’ve shown interest in me.

I can’t imagine how I would find these people – those that are interested in my topic – in an easier way. That’s called building community and it’s what social media is all about.

4. Blog networks do give special treatment for two reasons. The first is to attract a lot of traffic from good writers. Want to be featured on the front page of a network? Be a good writer. You could be among the most-hated participants but if you write well, you’ll still be featured.

The second is to reward the people that they have relationships with. This isn’t unfair, it’s smart. Relationships make the world go round. I personally have no idea how blogs are picked to be on the front page, but there’s an easy way to circumvent whatever process the blog network has installed. That is, build a relationship.
Email the community manager if you feel you have an especially good post to, 1) promote yourself, 2) begin that relationship, and 3) make the community manager’s job easier.

I guarantee that a better attitude to success is to ask not what the network can do for you, but what you can do for your network.

Collective truth.

Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com has a great article out this morning about the recent sale of DailyCandy.  A great site with some great content, I agree with Salmon that DC, with great content and a great vibe, has built a great email newsletter.  The design is top notch, extremely well designed and the right blend of

edginess.

Salmon’s belief for all those running a web business (or a business that utilizes the web channel) is that it is extremely important to turn web content into an email product.

Says Salmon:

It’s also an important reminder: if you want to make money from a website, put a lot of effort into turning your blog(s) into some kind of email product. Email reaches millions of people who never read blogs, and advertisers often adore it.

When thinking about utilizing the web to tap the power of social networks or using Sales 2.0 techniques to quickly scale your online business, email still remains one of the most powerful tools for reaching customers, selling advertising, and as we see with DailyCandy’s recently announced sale, monetizing your equity value.