Small Business Strategies

How to run a successful online business

Posterous Tip: How To Add Tags When Blogging by Email?

Posterous-tag

 

Do you use Posterous to update your site? I prefer to use Yahoo and Gmail to update the site rather than thru the Posterous site. Why? It’s easier to add images. You can add tags to your posts when you blog by email. Here’s how.
How to add tags to Posterous blog posts
1. Click in the subject of your email
2. Use the syntax (tag: Startup, Business Plan, Template, Whatever).
Your tags will be displayed when you post.
You can also go in and change the tags on the Posterous site.
More tips over here: http://ivanwalsh.posterous.com/

Chris Brogan: Write Better Blog Posts Today

writer You’re blogging, and some days, you feel like you’ve got it. Other days, you feel like your very best post never gets a comment, that you feel your stuff deserves more attention, that every other blog seems to be talking about something lame and why can’t they just see what you’ve written? From time to time, I’m asked to check out people’s blogs (I don’t often have time to review them, but I do read several of your blogs when you swing by and comment: it reminds me to do so). I have some recommendations to consider.

As with any time I cover this topic, I’m speaking to people who seek to blog somewhat professionally or about their profession. If you’re writing for the love of it, I’m not talking to you. Keep doing what you’re doing.

Compulisive reading at Cb's site: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/write-better-blog-posts-today

Facebook grows to $300 million, Experimental Phase of Social Networking over

eMarketer projects that US marketers will increase their social network ad spending 13.2% in 2010, to $1.3 billion.

“The expected rebound in spending will come as more companies focus on creating and implementing an overall social marketing strategy,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Social Network Ad Spending: A Brighter Outlook Next Year. “And it is a clear indication that the experimental phase of social network marketing is finally drawing to an end.”

2009 is turning into a year of major shifts in the social network business.

“Facebook, once a distant second to MySpace, has outperformed its rival in nearly every measure of usage—and is on track to surpass MySpace in ad spending by 2011,” says Ms. Williamson..

US spending at MySpace is expected to fall 15% in 2009, to $495 million, while US spending at Facebook is projected to rise 9%, to $230 million. Consequently, MySpace’s share of US spending is projected to fall to 43.4% in 2009, while Facebook and other social network venues will increase their share.

While the US accounts for the majority of ad spending on MySpace and Facebook, non-US spending is growing rapidly at Facebook. eMarketer estimates that marketers will spend a total of $520 million to advertise on MySpace worldwide in 2009, down 14% from 2008. Worldwide spending on Facebook, by contrast, is expected to grow 20%, to $300 million, in 2009.

“Regardless of which site is in the lead, 2009 is the year of building social marketing strategy,” says Ms. Williamson. “2010 and beyond will see increased activity and deployments.”

Social network users create a gigantic amount of data about themselves—their friend networks, likes and dislikes, content-sharing activities and more.

“Harnessing this information to deliver advertising not only within social networks, but on other sites a consumer may visit, is a marketer’s dream come true,” says Ms. Williamson.

Should Gmail be the Hub of Your Company's Social Media Strategy?

Gmail-universe

Louis Gray makes a case for putting Gmail as the heart of your Social Media Strategy. Does it add up? Well, Yes and No.
Let’s start with why use a Google account?
1. Access to Google Reader
2. Create a link blog using Google Reader
3. Use Feedburner to distribute your blog through RSS 
4. Tracking statistics via Google Analytics
For most of us, this makes sense and we’re probably doing it already. 
However, Louis argument that: 
‘By using Gmail, companies can centralize all social media-related communication, make it available to third-party vendors who may be participating, and easily integrate with other Google tools.
Needs a little re-think. 
Why?
Well, later on he concedes that Gmail can't solve every account. You still need a Facebook ID to start a fan page, and a Yahoo! ID to use Flickr. 
Ok, so it’s not perfect 
But if Gmail can accelerate your social media strategy, then take what you can and run with it. 
Here’s Louis plan of attack
1. Secure an official company Gmail ID (my italics)
2. Use it as the hub of you social networking activity. 
3. Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, SlideShare accounts should use that same e-mail
4. Setup new connection notifications and direct messages through Gmail and stats from SocialToo 
Now, I go along with this.
Indeed, there are other smart ways to integrate social media activities into Google.
These two from Digital Inspiration show you how to monitor your website/blog with Google Docs and how to track changes automatically
Even better is this Google Docs trick to find Your Most Popular Web Pages on Twitter 
Ok. Back to Louis.
However, others have pointed out that the following suggestion may violate Gmail’s terms of service. 
 ‘Whether you structure the e-mail address as companyinc@gmail.com or companycorp@gmail.com doesn't matter, so long as it's clearly official, and the "From" data is a company name, not that of an individual.’
Daniel Pritchett sees it as a bad plan. ‘Shared accounts tend to violate TOS.’ While John Wang hopes that Google Wave will make this all easier. “It looks more and more like what SharePoint should've been but never became.”
Perception is (almost) everything 
My concern is a little different.
If you surrender or retire your corporate email address (hard to see that getting signed off!) you also run the risk of how customers, especially new ones, and potential clients will react to your Gmail account. 
It might be an ‘official’ Gmail account but the question in many minds will be: ‘Why can’t they get a real one?’