Three Steps To Social Content Bliss

The Internet is always in flux, and so are you. You are a work in progress. The main takeaway I wanted you to have from the other night (video) is that it’s okay to show yourself learning, becoming, growing. Social media is a conversation, not a lecture. So start learning. Start growing. Explore news out there that interests you.

Your website is the hub of your online identity. The more dynamic it is, the more engaged your audience and clients will be.  A stagnant page can be pretty, but it’s not going to do much for your business. That’s where a blog comes in. A blog is your voice in motion.

A blog entry doesn’t have to be more than a few lines. 100 words would be fine. If you’re not interested in writing, a picture’s worth a 1000 words. Some of the most popular blogs on the planet are photo blogs.

Whatever you choose to do, first you need to be in the loop.

So how can you do this quickly and easily?

The best tip is to have a constant stream of thought starters that you can access quickly. That’s what a feed reader does. It’s essential.

1. Sign Up For A Feed Reader and Subscribe to news sources that support your brand or principles.

First of all, some of you wanted to know: What is RSS?

Definition: “Really Simple Syndication” feeds provide summaries of web content in a simple format. It is available through an RSS feed reader. It will show you what’s new without having to visit the website itself.

The feed reader I use to read my RSS feeds is Google Reader. You can find a tour of how to use it here. Once you’ve signed up, on the top left, there is an area that says “add subscription.” Click on it and put in a web address of a site you’d like to stay plugged into.

When you’ve added a web address, all the recent articles from that site will be listed. You can read the headlines or expand to see more of the posts (on the top right it will say “expanded or list”).

Another way to add RSS feeds to your reader is to be on a site first and then look for this symbol:

— or the words “RSS”

Click and you will be offered a choice of reader to add the feed to. Google is always on there. Click and it will take you to your Google Reader page.

Once you start adding more sites, all of your most essential information will be all together in one place.

That’s when you will arrange content by folders as I do here. Creating folders is easy. Google Reader will show you how.

This way, you can read all of your medical journal websites and blogs, your business websites, your law reviews, your sustainability or innovation-in-your-field news – at once. You can share with people. You can ‘star’ articles if you want to come back to them. This often inspires my commentary and my posts.

Google Reader’s an indispensable content manager which will make the whole business of blogging your part of the social media conversation a whole lot easier to contend with.

Make a plan to check your reader Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursday mornings.

These are great days to plan your blog entries. Of course you’ll need a blog first.

2. Set Up A Blog on WordPress

You may not be a pro now but if you want to have blogging software that is plugged into the newest most up-to-date social network “widgets“, one that offers flexibility and keeps you ranked high on Google, WP is the place to go. Microblogs can be great too and if you’re interested, I can help you with those. But why not take WordPress’ easy peazy set up tutorial first. Big beautiful slides will take the novice from blogless to ‘plugged in member of the blogosphere’ in no time. I highly recommend it.

Write a post to go out Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays. Start with 1-2 mini-posts a week if you dare.

3. Bit.ly for Twitter

All set up on Twitter? This last step assumes so. Signing up for Twitter is as easy as clicking on Twitter.com and following instructions. Add a welcoming profile picture, set a background, either a color or an image, write your 140 words describing yourself and what you do. (If you need help with this, let me know.) and start looking for interesting people to follow. Twitter actually helps you with this. They suggest people based on your profile. So make your profile count!

Posting on Twitter is about observations and thoughts that pertain to the world around you mixed with sharing news about your world. Most of all, Twitter is about giving. Since you only have 140 characters to express yourself, a URL shortener saves you a lot of space and it tracks your links for you.

There are lots of URL shorteners out there. Bitly is the original and I think it works great. So let’s not get fussy. Go to http://bit.ly/ and sign up.

Next, go here to the tools section where you can grab the Standard bitly Bookmarklet and dragggg it over to your toolbar on your browser or get the bitly sidebar that I was showing you during the presentation which, when clicked will send a dropdown

So, you’ll be on a website, click on the bit.ly bookmarklet on your browser, it will shorten the URL and give a summary of the link automatically. You also will have space to edit and tweak the message right in the bit.ly window.

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And those are my three steps!

If you need help defining your brand communications, creating a content plan of action, and help getting started, email me at chaunceyzalkin (at) gmail (dot) com.

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