I’ve been making more and more presentations about social media and because it is all still so new to everyone - including the “experts” - I’m refining my spiel as I go along. Here are some topics that are trending as some of the most important points I try to make about social media along with what I hope are concise, clear explanations about the technical stuff.

1. A Blog is Your Social Media Hub
When I say this, many people gasp, especially those who finally got a web site up after all these years or just spent a bucketload of money to redesign their existing web site. I’m not saying that a web site is now obsolete because of social media and Web 2.0 tools, however, blog publishing tools tend to integrate these tools so that embedding social functionality is incredibly easy. Many web sites and custom or older web site content management systems don’t even support javascript code, literally stripping out widgets and embedded social features. Blogs, by the nature of comments, encourage social interaction from the get go. Web sites struggle to be interactive and these days are turned to by consumers more for evergreen or background information or an online store, not the most current news or conversation.

2. RSS Feeds Are Your Secret Weapon
An RSS Feed (Really Simple Syndication) is your blog or site content stripped down to bare bones so that it can be fed or syndicated easily. People should be able to subscribe to your blog RSS feed, for example, and read your blog posts in their feed reader such as Google Reader. Or you can allow them to subscribe to your RSS feed and receive your blog posts - or blog post headlines and excerpts with links back to your blog - via email. RSS feeds can also be used to tie your blog together with other social networking sites. For example, Twitterfeed can be used to automatically post a link to your latest blog post to your Twitter page - automatically. Now that’s handy!

3. You Only Need To Join a Few Key Networks
People get so overwhelmed by social networking and are afraid that they will have to join countless networks in order to have a successful online social media campaign. I would never recommend someone who is new to social media to set up more than a handful of accounts, if that. I would recommend that you be strategic about the networks you join in a way that provides you with the functionality you need. For example, I would recommend that in addition to your blog you get an account with Flickr to handle your photos and video; Twitter to engage in microblogging (automatically via Twitterfeed); Facebook to take advantage of groups and events; and if you are involved with music, the arts, any entertainment or have a cool retail business, then a MySpace page is a must have.

4. You Need a Friending Strategy
Before you go accepting every friend offer you get, click over to see who they are. Beware of Friend Spam that leads to pornography. Beware of Friend Mongers who just friend people to friend them with no rhyme or reason. But don’t be too picky that you reject anyone who doesn’t fit into a neat demographic that you identify as your audience. Keep in mind that social networks are not only about the people who are your “friends” but the people with whom your friends are friends. And when you embark on a Friending Campaign, don’t be scattershot and don’t be a spammer. Be polite, low key, give a good reason for why you are sending a Friend invite, and don’t persist if they decline.

5. You Should Use a Password Algorithm
I learned about password algorithms not from my Dad. If you are joining a handful of networks and have already been having trouble keeping track of your many, many passwords, a password algorithm can save the day. Let’s say you want a 9 character password for all of your sites. You don’t want to use the same password for all sites and 9 characters is pretty hard to remember (other than your Social Security number, that is). Break the password down into 3 parts. Decide what you will use for each of the 3 parts. Such as:

First 3 characters: The first three letters of your last name
Next 3 characters: Use 8*8
Last 3 characters; The last three letters of the web site

So if your last name was Smith and you have a Twitter account, the password would be SMI8*8TER.
If you had a MySpace account, the password would be MI8*8ACE. And so on.

These are just a few tips to help you better understand and manage your foray into social media marketing for your company or organization.

What is your favorite social media tip?

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