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Social Media Questions and Answers

Inside Small Business | May 28th, 2009

John Jantsch From Hewlett Packard’s Marketing Guide

Last week we conducted a live web panel discussion here – Taking Your Brand Online – with Chris Brogan,[http://www.chrisbrogan.com] Guy Kawasaki [www.alltop.com], David Meerman Scott [www.davidmeermanscott.com] and me as part four of a five part series aimed at helping small business owners get up and running and successfully marketing on and offline.

We always receive way more questions than we can answer during the call so I thought I would grab a few that we did not have a chance to get to and post those answers here.

1) Q: What’s the one advice, one thing you think a small company starting up with social media should do?

A: There really are so many ways to utilize the various social media tools available to the small business, such as blogs, twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr, and many people want to jump in and test the waters on all. However, the first thing you should is listen and watch.In order to learn how businesses are effectively using social media tools, or at least how you might use them, you need sit on the sidelines and observe. One of the best ways to do this is to employ a free tool such as Google Reader and subscribe to a number industry related blogs so you can see first hand how others are using social media day to day.

2) Q: What is the best way to film and get a youtube video on the web?

A: Youtube actually makes the process very easy. First, of course you need to record and perhaps edit your video and save it one of the more common file formats such a MOV, MPEG4 or AVI. Then you must create a free youtube account. Once you’ve completed both of these steps you simply login and hit “upload a video” and follow the onscreen instructions. You will have the opportunity to name, describe and tag your video and if you are using this for marketing purposes I suggest you take the time to complete this step thoroughly. Once you save your upload YouTube converts it to a flash file for viewing by anyone on the YouTube site (unless you make it a private file) and creates code that allows you to embed the video and a video player on your web site or blog.

3) Q: Some Twitterers are unrelenting marketers, and I stop following them. Any tips on how not to be overbearing, yet still being effective at marketing?

A: Use your own experience as a bit of a guide here. If you don’t receive value in terms of content from the people you follow on twitter most will unfollow. People build followings on twitter, as they do in many other social media platforms, because the consistently have and share something useful. That must be your goal as well as you build a following. Once you’ve earned the right to the occasional pitch your readers will allow and in some cases welcome it after you’ve built trust first. Of course, even that trust can be violated if you abuse it. Also, don’t forget to join me for the next live webinar panel discussion with Ken Yancey, Jr, CEO of SCORE [www.score.org], Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software [www.paloalto.com], and Rich Sloan author of StartUpNation[www.startupnation.com] to talk about starting a business on Wednesday, May 20th at 9am PDT/Noon EDT Register here, and you can listen to all past recordings in addition to joining us live on the 20th.