Writing for your blog or community pages can be a challenge. Make your life easier by covering and sharing content that is part of your everyday work.

Here are five quick tips I just gave a client Bryan Davis who provides mobile phone and telecommunication services.

Five Quick Content Themes

1. Question of the week – the answer to a challenging question you were asked this week i.e. just share what you said already
2. Latest new phone gossip – an overview of content you have read in the course of doing your daily work
3. News round up – the top news as found in your Google Reader that week. You choose this on personal opinion or pick the ones with the hightest PostRank score
4. Money saving tip – you do this for clients every week. Share the love!
5. Industry Insights  - your opinion on something topical and how it relates to your audience

You dont have to change the future of the planet with your blog posts – you just have to add value to your audience. Twist these five suggestions to fit your work and you will soon find creating content easier.

It’s all very well having lots of followers but the trick to growing them is to be part of the few that everyone wants to follow. It would be exhausting trying to round up everyone. I say:

Be part of the few. The masses follow the few.

So how do you do this?

Finding Content

A good way to identify key influencers is by finding content created by them. Unless you are using a premium social media monitoring tool a good way to do this is through RSS feeds of search results which you collect in Google Reader.  Most search engines allow you to subscribe to results via RSS feed. There are many you could use, just look for the RSS logo on the results page.

• Goole Alerts
• Socialmention
• IceRocket.com

For this example we are using Google Alerts. Set up a Google Alert and receive it via RSS Feed into Google Reader.

To summarise, once you have the search results coming into Google Reader you simply need to identify the authors, decide which are key influencers and then seek to engage them.

See Which Content Gets Shared Most

By using the PageRank extension on your browser – I use Google Chrome – you can see which blog posts are getting talked and shared about the most. Look for the mid to high scoring blog posts as an indicator of who is most influential.

Use The Author Name To Find Social Profiles

Click on the authors name and see where it takes you. Often there will be a profile page.

Look for links to Twitter and copy their Twitter name

Visit PeekYou.com, Pipl.com and finally Google to search on their name and username

This will show you the channels where you can find more content and connect with the author.

Find The Most Influential Bloggers

Once you have someone’s Twitter name you can see who is the most influential. Again by using extensions in your browser this is easy. Add the Klout and PeerIndex extensions and you will see people’s scores against their names.

Connect and Say Hi

It is rare that people actually tell you when they follow you. I recommend you send them a personal message whatever network is it on and tell them why you are following them and that you are looking forward to reading more from them, speaking with them or even meeting them. A good way to do this is to actually leave a comment on some of their other content and then tell them;

Just left a comment on your great blog about Going To The Moon. Looking forward to reading more. Would be great to connect.

Comment and Share Regularly

No relationship is ever established instantly. If this person is high profile they may get lots of people connecting and following them. You need to show over time that you are interested in them and that you can offer value back to them. You will do this by consistently commenting and sharing on their content. People don’t use social media or write blogs to stay anonymous. You noticing and contributing is an asset to them and over time a relationship will be established. In order to do this you need to stay aware of the latest content and updates. Put your key influencer targets in a Twitter List of Google+ Circle. Add RSS feeds of their content to your Google Reader and put them in a separate folder. Now you can promptly comment or refer to their content. If you are worried about looking like a stalker, well judge for yourself where you are adding value or where you are simply hunting someone down. Consider it flirting!

A consistent approach to this method will ensure you are able to engage key influencers. When these people talk about you or with you all their followers will get introduced to YOU.

Have you got such a strategy? What tools and tricks do you use? Feel free to share them in the comments.

One of the biggest challenges when creating content is finding time around your existing work and all your other social media efforts. What you should do is use the content creation process to engage your audience.

The great benefit of doing this is when you do finally publish it you will have a ready prepared audience eagerly waiting for it. What’s more if you produce your content on a subject that is topical to your business it will be easier to write, you may learn something new and you will also likely generate more enquiries.

Share Content Plans With Followers

When you first start to create a piece of content you may often wonder what people want to know about. Using trending topics and discussions with lots of comments is a good way to find out. You could of course just ask. A LinkedIn discussion, Facebook update or just a quick tweet will do nicely.

Planning an industry survey – what’s the biggest challenge you face in using social media for your business?” Please reply and RT

Survey Your Respondents

Once you have some responses put together a quick survey. Google Docs surveys are simple and free to deploy. Share your goals and intentions along the way as this will make people feel more involved. You can even offer early access to the data as an incentive. A quick blog post is a good way to do this. You can share details of the blog post on back your social profiles, such as the LinkedIn discussion.

Thanks for all your responses. The biggest challenge currently faced is “How To Measure Results of Your Social Media Efforts”. I compiling an industry report on this subject and will give anyone who answers my short survey early access to the findings. Please take 5 minutes to answer these six questions

Tease Your Audience

Brands such as Apple are experts at building anticipation and desire for their products by leaking out snippets of information. You can keep your audience engaged by sharing findings and thoughts along the way e.g. on Twitter:

Amazing insights from measuring social media survey. 28% of businesses say they don’t know how to measure results. 32% say the do. Which part are you?” Full report to come.

Publish Your Report

When you results are all in then it’s time to create and publish your content. Remember, you want it to have reach and you want it to drive traffic back to you. Write a blog post and place the report in it. A great way to do this is publish your documents and presentations on Slideshare.net and embed the player in your blog post. This excellent social network will help you get your content shared. If you want to use your report to build an email database turn off the download feature and put a link to your email subscription page throughout the presentation. Remember to tell people how to get it.

Share Content With Your Audience

Go back to the original contributors first. Let them know they have first access. Ask them to comment and to share it with their network. If you don’t tell people what to do they wont. After a day or so make a larger more prominent series of announcements about your survey. Do so on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn updates. Reference it in the comments of other relevant blogs and discussions. Email it to bloggers and publications who might want to reference the findings. Be sure to always drive people back to your blog for full access to the report.

I just got asked on LinkedIn to provide someone with a template for a Digital Strategy and guidelines on how to write it. Now I thought that was quite a cheek!

In the interest of being helpful and supportive to this random request from India I sent back this list which I am sharing here. There are definatly sub sections which could be expanded on. Feel free to add any suggestions to the comments below.

For the contents of a digital strategy would look at:

• Target audience – define the audience your serve
• Define their needs
• Client Objective – what are the objectives of your digital activity
• How does your product, services and objectivs fit the needs of your target audience?
• What value can your knowledge and experience add to your customers business?
• Competitor and Digital Landscape Research
  • what channels used?
  • what communities exist?
  • what trends around application and device use?
• Website content and goals – what content will attract your audience and constitutes a conversion – a sale, a subscription, a comment?
• Social channels – which are right to use
• Content themes – what value can we add to our audience
• Online Advertising and SEO – what to focus on and where
• Social Media Monitoring – listening and observing, monitoring sentiment
• Community Engagement and Management – who will do this and what style, tone, rules will be followed
• Internal Processes – how will we manage inbound requests and conversation online? Dont forget crisis management
• Reporting – what will be KPI’s, how will we measure them and what processes do we put in place to evolve.

Off the top of my head today these would be the main headings of a Digital Strategy. There are sub categories depending on how detailed your proposal needs to be.

Have you got any to add to this? Or perhaps you disagree. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Google +1 button is now available for all websites and blogs across the Internet. +1 is widely seen as Google’s answer to the popular Like button of Facebook as they have similar goals – both let you easily recommend web pages, that you like, to your contacts as well as the outside world.

There’s however one big reason why web publishers are more likely to embrace Google’s +1 button – it can bring in more traffic. How? In simple English, if enough people +1 a page on your site, Google could see that as a positive signal and that may help improve your site’s ranking in organic search results.

Google’s OPG have published this 1-sheet overview that explains the +1 button in greater detail.

Google +1 Bookmarklet

Most websites will add the +1 button to their web pages in the near future but until that happens, you may use the following bookmarklet to easily +1 any web page on the Internet.

You can install by simply dragging the above link to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar (or see the following video). And since this is a bookmarklet, it should work across all desktop and mobile browsers.

Thanks to orginal post by Digital Inspiration

You cant actually own a hashtag and the process of starting one is as basic as put a # in front of a word or phrase (with no spaces) and you have created one. The success of a hashtag is then really down to how much it gets adopted by others and how much they relate it back to you. Some hashtags are simple labels, others signify a group or event name. Increasingly we are seeing the success of more ironic hashtags such as #stayonyourfeet or the classic #justsaying.

There really are no rules about what can be turned into a hashtag but if you want something to gain traction and relate back to you then:

• Use the hashtag consistently
• Associate relevant content with it
• Ensure it is being filtered into your target audience
• Create a web page or other resource where the hashtag can be explained

If you want to see what #hashtags are being used for your industry or target audience right now then simply search for it on Twitter (http://search.twitter.com) or in one of the many Twitter search engines.

• Have it running as a column in your Tweetdeck
• See how much it is being used and what other #hashtags are related to it at Twubs.com
• Find out people who are using it locally to you at geochirp.com
• See what is trending around a word or #hashtag using Topsy.com

Once you have started a #hashtag one of the only free ways to create a record of every tweet with your #hashtag in is to use twapperkeeper.com. You get two free searches.

We are going to see the increasingly prominent use of #hashtags in media and quite likely everyday language – much like people can now be heard to say LOL, which was originally short text speak for ‘laugh out loud’. If you watch E4 (the UK digital television channel) then you will see them promote #hashtags for their programmes at the ad breaks. This week saw their new TV show Beaver Falls trending on Twitter and other sites with #beaverfallsE4. Interestingly as a tactic the comparison of hashtag use from analytics.Topsy.com show 852 results for #beaverfallse4 and 410 results for #beaverfalls.

Just goes to prove people love to be told what to do.

We run reports for people on hashtag use and trends so if you need some help in this area just give us a shout.

Working out the ideal name for your LinkedIn Group is just one of the factors that will help determine it’s success. Deciding how long it should be is something I have thought about a number of times. Short and punchy is easier to remember and quote but, it is harder to use keywords that other people might search for to find a Group like yours.

The maximum length that shows up on screen is 64. Here is one I am working on today. 

 TEN – business networking and cross channel trade between UK,…

It’s a closed group at present but as you can see the name is longer than the text allows. So, whilst we work on perfecting this here are my tips for naming your LinkedIn Group:

1. Keywords get you found – think about what words your target members will search for. Make sure your group name is clear and includes these keywords.
2. Dont name it after your company – your clients will still join but others may not. Think about what value the Group will offer people. That is what the name should suggest.
3. Create a logo that fits the small standard logo box (60×30). Make it visual – not a lot of point putting too much text in that
4. Keep it under 64 characters!

So there is just a couple of tips on naming your LinkedIn Group. What’s your favourite LinkedIn Group and how many characters are in its name?!