I'm pleased to announce that today, our research paper, "Rising to Stardom: An Empirical Investigation of the Diffusion of User-generated Content" was published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. You can access the full-text article online and the print version is in press. Here's the study abstract: 

Abstract

With the explosive growth of online user-generated content and the desire by marketers to better utilize this space, it is beneficial to understand the viral diffusion of such content and to identify messages that are most likely to achieve popularity. In this paper, we combine network analysis and the diffusion literature to study the spreading of user-generated videos online. We identify three groups of factors that affect diffusion outcomes: network structure, content characteristics, and author characteristics. Using a proportional rates model, we analyze the diffusion of a sample of videos on YouTube. Our results show that it is preferable to have many subscribers who each has a few friends than to have a few subscribers with many connections. Furthermore, a curvilinear relationship exists between subscriber network connectivity and diffusion rate such that diffusion is at its highest under moderate connectivity. Examining content characteristics, we show that entertainment and educational values affect diffusion but production quality does not matter. Moreover, we find that quality as manifested by user ratings influences diffusion more than innate content quality. Not surprisingly, an author's past success carries over to the current content, and content from younger authors is more popular.

We collected a random sample of over 100 user-generated videos newly uploaded onto YouTube over the course of a week. We tracked each video for a period of two months, recording the number of views and the average user ratings each day. We also collected a large number of characteristics for each video, including those related to the video content, to the video author and to the network of users connected to the video author. We had study participants rate each video on its production quality, educational value and entertainment value. Here are some highlights of our findings. 

• Diffusion rate is at its highest under moderate network connectivity. Authors with a large number of subscribers who each has only a handful of friends are in a better position than authors with a small number of subscribers who in turn may have a large number of friends.
• Influence rather than reach facilitates the diffusion of user-generated content, demonstrating the value of opinion leadership.
• Entertainment and educational values positively affect diffusion, whereas production quality did not matter.
• User ratings had an impact on a videos successful diffusion. Increasing the average rating by 1 star can lead to as much as 13.5% gain in diffusion rate.
• Younger users’ contributions are more likely to be popular.
• An author’s past experience and success positively affect diffusion of new videos. 

We hope that marketers and public relations practitioners (as well as other content creators) will find this information useful in more effectively predicting the success of user-generated content and planning successful online campaigns. We also hope this study offers a stepping stone for more research on the topic.

PLP offers a long-term, job-embedded professional development program to help educators better understand 21st Century learning environments. PLP's model enables thousands of educators around the country to experience the transformative power of the social Web: Face-to-face in their own schools, exchanging ideas through a community of inquiry and in re-envisioning their own personal learning practice.

So with PLP, I'm not just marketing with social media, I'm participating with social media. I'm directly connecting with educators who are learning to develop their own Personal Learning Networks through social media. I'm very excited to approach social media from this new perspective, and it's opened my eyes even more to the power of social media. I've used social media for learning and connecting with others for many years, and it's truly been priceless for my own personal learning and professional development. It's very rewarding to help educators do the same.

Two of my colleagues at PLP, co-founder Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall, recently published The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age, a book to help educators create a learning community through social media and take advantage of technology to improve their own learning and ultimately the learning of their students. This would be an excellent gift to share with any teachers in your life.

PLP also offers e-learning courses. There's a free Web 2.0 Tools eCourse that anyone (not just educators) can check out. Sign up and you’ll receive an email every day for two weeks with a Web 2.0 tool activity. At the end of the eCourse, you’ll be well on your way to being a Web 2.0 tools master and developing your personal learning network.

To learn more about Reina Communications' role at Powerful Learning Practice, check out my interview on the PLP blog.

I don't think I have ever felt so personally saddened by the loss of a public figure as I have today with the loss of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator and an inspiration to us all to "Think different." He changed the world by putting the tools in our homes and in our hands so we can all be innovators. 

I wanted to share an excerpt from Steve Job's epic 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

--Steve Jobs

We all owe it to Steve to use our MacBooks, our iPads, our iPhones and other devices to change the world for the better.

EVALUATION RESEARCH

Every good social media campaign should end with evaluation research: What were the measurable results? Did the campaign acheive its goal? What are the key learnings from the campaign that would improve future campaigns?

Measurable results 

For larger campaigns, I would tally the results using a service like Radian 6, but I'm approaching this small scale campaign the way my small business clients would, manually counting comments, mentions and posts. By 10:30pm on Social Good Day, 12 hours after the campaign started, my blog post received:   

• 8 comments
• 20 tweets with @replies
• 25 retweets
• 5 shared facebook posts (probably more, but this was harder to track)
• 89 likes and 56 comments on the (RED) facebook page (showing their support, they posted about my campaign). 

The social good blog post received about 100 more unique visitors than a typical blog post would in the first 12 hours as well. The post received 56 referrals from Facebook in addition to 30 referrals directly from (RED)'s facebook page.

That's what I could quickly hand count, I'm sure I missed a few posts. Comments and referrals are still coming in, but it's safe to say I'll be donating $100 to the Global Fund!

Was the campaign's goal achieved?

The goal of the campaign was to spread the word about (Red) and Social Good Day. While the $100 donation affords a lot of HIV/AIDs medication for patients in Africa, I could have donated that on my own without a campaign. The important result was that there were at least 100 posts about (Red) in the social media sphere because of my blog post. A hundred social media users shared information about (Red) and Social Good Day with their thousands of friends and followers! I consider the goal acheived!

What can be learned from this campaign about using social media for social good? 

Bloggers should be personally engaged by an organization. I've been busy with clients the past few weeks and hadn't kept up with my Mashable or (RED) news feed. I found out about Social Good Day this morning and had to react fast. How did I find out about Social Good Day? I recieved a tweeted direct message from (RED) asking for my support. The tweet was personal in that it mentioned my support from the year before and linked to a blog post that reference my campaign last year. 

This wasn't the first time (RED) had engaged with personally. The first Social Good Day last year, the organization retweeted and @replied me, making a point to show appreciation for my effort. This morning, I was not at all prepared to do a blog post about Social Good Day, but the personal engagment inspired me to make it happen. Had I not had a personal engagement with (RED), I wouldn't have gone to that kind of trouble.

Every blogger has an influence. Don't limit engagement to the blog stars. My Greater Good Life blog has nothing on the Huffington Post or Care2, but (RED) didn't overlook me! Often times, social good campaigns are quick to point out that even the smallest donation can make a big difference, yet they don't abide by their own "every little bit counts" philosophy when it comes to engagement. As a blogger, I've never been pitched by a nonprofit (other than (RED)) to write a post about their efforts, though I'd be happy to do it! If my local SPCA did a simple blog search on Google, I'm sure they would see I've posted about dogs. If my local food pantry did the same, they'd see I've posted about world hunger. If these organizations that have causes relevant to my blog invite me to their organization for a tour or suggest a good story, I'd be happy to support their cause. Organizations just have to ask in a way that is not a pitch, but a collaboration. 

An organization should use social media to show they care about their supporters as much as their cause. I've given money to a lot of organizations that resulted in repeated, tree-killing impersonal direct mail being stuffed into my mailbox. These organizations care a great deal about their causes, but they don't seem to care about me as a supporter. I'm a number, a dollar figure to them, not a person. Social media allows organizations to truly interact with supporters and build a relationship with them. Supporters can offer an organization much more than money, they can offer word-of-mouth and inspiration to others. 

There is a lot of distraction in the social media space, so consistency is key. Facebook's major redesign dominated the discussion online today, on both Facebook and Twitter. As much as we posted about social good, this added some clutter to our message. My campaign blog post did not get the same attention from my Facebook friends as it normally would. I think this was because so many of my friends were complaining about and trying to figure out the new Facebook changes launched today. This kind of distraction is uncontrollable in social media. We have to take into account that whatever our message, there are countless other equally important messages floating around in the space. The best way to counter this is through consistency of the message. Use of a hashtag and very simple descriptions with links keeps a message clearly communicated amongst the clutter. 

Keep the conversation going. The goal of spreading the word does not end with starting a conversation. The conversation should be continued through additional interaction. I did with my campaign so far by replying to any tweets and posts that came my way. When I have time over the next several days, I'll go back and follow and subscribe to the people I interacted with on Twitter and Facebook and send those who left comments on my blog an e-mail thanking them. (RED) does a stellar job of this. (RED) kept in touch with me after last year's campaign, and I hear from the organization personally via social media throughout the year. I maintain an interest in (RED)'s cause, even with all the distractions in the social media space, because (RED) continues to engage me.

How could the next campaign be better?

Next time, I'd spend more time. I wasn't prepared for Social Good Day, so the campaign could have been better planned and executed with a little more time. Maybe I could have found sponsors and partnered with other bloggers. Also, 12-24 hours is not long period to run a campaign. Perhaps a campaign like this should have been launched on Social Good Day and continued throughout the week.

Next time, I'd love to join forces with a large group of bloggers. I could envision a social good campaign where 50 or more bloggers join forces to make a bigger impact. A call to bloggers could be placed on the campaign's website. Bloggers can sign up and pledge to post and donate a specific amount. There could be a page that showcases all of the participating bloggers. There is a lot of potential to experiment with here. I hope this campaign offers a stepping stone for others to take this idea and run with it.

Next time, it would be great to include a photo or video component. Words are only one dimension of social media. Photos and videos would make this campaign more three-dimentional. An organization wishing to expand on this campaign could set up a Flickr photo pool, a YouTube channel or a Tumblr or Posterous blog to collect multimedia entries. Even with my small scaled campaign, if I had planned a little more, I would have loved creating a video for Social Good Day. I'm sure other bloggers and social media users would do the same.

So that's my analysis of a #SocialGood campaign. I'm always happy to share my ideas with worthwhile organizations that need help brainstorming strategic efforts. Please contact me if you decide to run a campaign like this one and would like more thoughts. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go donate $100.

Technology is supposed to make everything easier, yet it often just complicates our lives. I realize this when I find myself interrupting a nice meal at a restaurant or a relaxing day at the beach by checking my iPhone incessantly.

Thankfully, I found an article about 10 Karmic Laws for technology, and it inspired me to get a grip on what's important and to keep it simple so that technology actually works for me (not the other way around!). Here are some highlights from the article:

Not all tweets are created equal

Tweeting or updating your Facebook status is pretty much like getting up on a stage in front of 100+ of your friends and acquaintances and saying something into a microphone...be sure to think twice about your intention and be respectful of your audience. A simple tip: don't over post -- not every thought that comes into your head needs to be shared.

Post in the past tense

Live your life, then share it. Here is an example: "I'm talking to the most amazing person in the elevator." Really? How can you be doing that when you're preoccupied tweeting about it? Instead, just enjoy the conversation. Forget there is a phone in your pocket or purse. Give yourself to that conversation. Then 10 minutes later, share the past tense variation "I just had the most amazing conversation with a women in the elevator!"

Give it a rest

Create a technology Sabbath! Choose a day of the week where you will not allow any electronic devices or media into your daily routine (outside of mandatory situations, like work).

When it comes down to it, much of the networking we're doing online is just taking time out of our lives to clutter the lives of our friends. Just because we have the ability to share every mundane thought of the moment doesn't mean there is a reason to. By limiting our time with and access to technology, we're forcing ourselves to value its use more and make better use of our limited time spent using it. So the answer is not in finding more time for technology, but in making sure each text, e-mail and post we create enhances our own lives or the lives of those we're connecting with.

If I live by these Karmic Laws, I'm pretty sure I'll reduce about half of the clutter I consume and produce using technology. And that makes time for me to take advantage of Google+ and anything else new that comes my way.

My good friend and social media consulting colleague, Amber Karnes, was checking her Facebook feeds yesterday morning when she came across a Tumblr post by an independent jewelry artist who claimed Urban Outfitters stole her designs. The artist, Stevie Keorner, made a very compelling case. Outraged, Amber simply tweeted a link to the blog post:

Her tweet instantly received hundreds of retweets. Hours later, blogs like the Huffington Post and Boing Boing were reporting the news and celebrities like Miley Cyrus were bashing Urban Outfitters on Twitter. Urban Outfitters became an international trending topic on Twitter, and Amber's tweet was the top tweet about the topic! Amber wrote about how the entire sequence of events unfolded and how this story went viral, including her own PR perspective. It's definitely worth the read to see how someone with only about 1,000 twitter followers can create quite a stir for a large corporation: Anatomy of a trending topic: How Twitter & the crafting community put the smackdown on Urban Outfitters. 

Working in PR, the interesting part in all of this is that Urban Outfitters has done nothing substantial to respond. Within hours of Twitter breaking the news, the company sent one tweet relevant to the topic:

Beyond that, there has been no public response to this crisis. It appears Urban Outfitters removed the product from its stores (online and offline), but the company has not made any public announcements. This lack of response when their brand is virally getting slammed by people supporting a boycott is baffling. If I were consulting Urban Outfitters, here are some recommendations I would have given them:

1. Engage the influencers. There are several people, such as Amber, who were directly involved in spreading this story to the masses. These influencers should have been contacted immediately--via Twitter, via e-mail, via phone--to assure them their voices are important to the company and that Urban Outfitters cares and is looking into the matter.

2. Apologize. When a company does wrong, it's crucial to apologize and take responsibility. In the age of social media, this has to happen FAST. Every organization should have a playbook for handling crisis responses so it can react with timeliness to a crisis erupting virally online. Granted there are probably legal implications to be considered when announcing an apology, but the legal department should not keep the PR department from doing what's right. Urban Outfitters should publicly apologize for the gaff and explain the company has taken the products off the shelf while it continues to look further into the allegations. Using the company's website, Facebook, Twitter and blogger relations, Urban Outfitters should explain this gaff and explain how they are making it right.

3. Make it right. First off, you have to attack this problem at the source. That means looking internally at the organization and determining, "how did this happen?" What in Urban Outfitter's corporate culture allowed for this kind of bad corporate behavior? Urban Outfitters should be putting the appropriate measures in place internally to ensure this practice of stealing ideas from independent artists discontinues immediately. Perhaps even, heads should hit the chopping block.

Externally, a lot more goes into making it right publicly. Sometimes, you have to pay the Pied Piper. Urban Outfitters should come to an agreement with the designer they ripped off and should be investigating other instances within the company where this has happened (this is not the only allegation). Settling with these designers may involve the legal process, but it's PR's responsibility to get the message out that Urban Outfitters is committed to supporting independent designers and is actively working to resolve this problem.

4. Create goodwill. Urban Outfitters has outraged its customers, who value indie design and artistic expression. It's going to take a lot of work to repair that reputation damage. Urban Outfitters needs to launch a campaign celebrating independent designers. Perhaps they need a new product line where the designers are showcased and receive credit (similar to how Tiffany celebrates their designers, such as Paloma Picasso and Elsa Peretti). Beyond that, Urban Outfitters needs a longterm strategy for engaging the crafters and designers online who launched this attack on its brand. The damage is repairable if Urban Outfitters is willing to do the right thing.

While the delayed response to this crisis has already occurred, I still think Urban Outfitters could make this right. I hope they do because I used to love shopping there. 

What do you think? Was one tweet from Urban Outfitters enough to weather the social media storm? What would you have recommended if you were on their PR team? And if you, too, support this boycott, did the company do enough to win you back? What would have to happen to make you shop at Urban Outfitters again?

In the early days of facebook, I kept my profile strictly personal, not allowing work colleagues (or my mom!) access. If a colleague sent me a friend request, I simply replied that I am better at staying in touch on LinkedIn and would link to them there. But as Facebook slowly began taking over our world, I kept getting more and more friend requests from colleagues (mom kept resending friend requests too!). Maybe the answer was to create lists so that only certain groups could see certain postings?

While I was giving that some thought, facebook had a few privacy mishaps. Learning from that lesson, I began deleting any photos and content I didn't wish for my work colleagues (or mom) to see. Sure I could have set up groups, limiting what people in the "colleagues" group would see, but I felt it was just safer to not post anything online that I wouldn't want everyone to see.

Of course, that's hard when you want to post your photos from a party or vacation. Or even yet, when someone else tags a picture of you having a good time. But if you keep it somewhat classy, I think there is more of an understanding these days that outside of work we all have social lives.

On that leap of faith, I actually made my facebook profile and posts visible to everyone a few weeks ago. Guess what, the world didn't end (no stalkers yet, thankfully)! I figured since I'm mindful about what I post, there's no need to keep everyone from viewing it. Some people might find my profile edgy, but I'm perfectly happy with my facebook privacy work-life balance. No one seems offended by my posts yet anyways.

How do you handle facebook privacy work-life balance? Have you had any problems or concerns mixing business with pleasure on facebook? If you are hiring, what would you have to see on someone's facebook profile to disqualify them? I'd love to see some comments on the topic.

Here I am geeking out over a Mac with @captkevman at my very first Hampton Roads tweetup about two years ago.

While social media enables us to communicate with people all across the globe, it also strengthens communication within local communities. Here in Hampton Roads, Va., we are fortunate to have a vibrant online business community. As I prepare for the “Shameless Self Promotion” panel I’ll be participating on Thursday night for the Hampton Roads chapter of AIGA, I thought I’d share these tips for getting the most out of using social media in Hampton Roads.

• Start out by finding your favorite Hampton Roads media and places to hang out on Facebook and Twitter. Once you are friending/following your favorite local hotspots, connect with interesting people who also are friending/following them. That will get you connected with a good base of locals who you have something in common with.
• On Twitter, use the #hrva hashtag for anything related to Hampton Roads, Va. If you tweet about something that would be interesting to other locals (weather, traffic, local happenings), use the hashtag in your tweet. If you are looking for other locals online, search the #hrva hastag to see who else is using it and what they are talking about. You can also search other keywords on Twitter, such as “Norfolk” or “Virginia Beach” to find interesting locals to follow.
• Take advantage of Twitter lists. I admit, I’m not good at organization, and I rarely organize my own lists on Twitter and Facebook. (I want to, but I just never feel like cleaning house.) But, I do take advantage of other people’s lists. For example, @gypsealeah has this fantastic list of "Hampton Roads Friends" on Twitter.  You'll find other lists like this as you spend more time checking out the local Twitter scene.
• Time to get out from behind the computer and meet people face-to-face! It's been my experience that everyone is always as friendly and interesting in person as they are online.  There often are "tweetups" in the 757. I attended these regularly (before moving to Kill Devil Hills, N.C.) and met a lot of people I now consider friends in real life. The 757 Tweetups always offer a good, friendly crowd of new people to meet. If you aren’t obsessed with Twitter, use Meetup.com to find another Meetup group in the area. For example, I once belonged to a single girls Meetup group, and we would meet for cocktails and other fun activites like GoKarting.
• Start writing reviews. I personally prefer Yelp for learning about new hot spots. I should mention, I actually worked for Yelp as a Virginia Beach Scout earlier this year. I have a lot of reviews posted on my Yelp profile. Many people have visited my website or contacted me after finding my reviews on Yelp. I even attended a Hampton Roads Yelp Meetup to meet some fellow Yelpers. We had an awesome time at Still in Portsmouth.

Living in Hampton Roads, there is no shortage of ways to meet interesting people online and develop them into genuine relationships. I could mention so many people who I have met this way and stayed in touch with. Here are just a few examples of how my social media friendships started online and evolved offline.

@captkevman – I met Kevin at the very first Hampton Roads tweetup a couple of years ago. He worked as an Apple genius at the time, and we had a lot of Mac and social media geekiness in common. We stayed in touch through Twitter and Tumblr. He has always been my go-to for Apple-related concerns. He started up his own business consulting and fixing Apple computers and devices called Beach Mac (soon to be rebranded Beach Tec). Given my clumsiness with iPhones, I’m a regular customer of Kevin’s. I’ve also refered a number of friends to him.

@parnellK63 – Keith is a wicked smart social media marketer. We were both early adopters of Twitter, so we started following each other when there were very few locals tweeting. I enjoy reading his blog and learning from his posts and tweets. In 2009, he asked me to speak about social media and public relations at New Media Conventions in Virginia Beach. From there, I met so many more locals interested in social media.  Keith is someone I can reach out to when I have a social media question or just want to brainstorm.

@Keshia6 – Lakeshia is a writer for Inside Business Hampton Roads. I started following her on Twitter at the suggestion of my good friend, Amber Karnes. The three of us decided to meet offline for lunch since we all worked in downtown Norfolk. We enjoyed our lunch together, and I’ve been in touch with her ever since via Facebook and Twitter. She always is posting about books she’s reading, which is good because I’m always looking for reading suggestions. A couple of months ago, Lakeshia was looking for a social media PR person to interview for a story about corporate social media policies. Guess who she contacted?

So there you have it, social media for shameless self promotion in action--757 style! If you are getting started after reading this post, be sure to follow me on Twitter and send me a shout. I'll do my best to help you get connected.



1. Be genuine. Your goal for networking online should always be to create meaningful relationships. Social media is about building relationships through many-to-many communication. So if you are simply trying to talk about yourself and make a sales pitch, you won’t get very far. You should be interested in helping others as much, if not more, than helping yourself. That level of authenticity is rewarded through social media.
2. Have something to share. Think about what you know well and how you can make that information unique to an online audience. No matter the topic, it’s guaranteed that thousands of other people are online posting about the very same topic. It’s not enough to post about what you know, you have to make it personal. For example, when I first started blogging about social media and public relations, I took the approach of blogging about the research I was doing for my master’s degree. As I researched and learned more about online communications, I shared my findings with others. The key to creating unique content is to incorporate your personal experiences.
3. Start blogging and posting. I realize not everyone is a writer. But it’s true, the best way to be found online (via search engines) is to blog lots of written content. If you can find something you are passionate about and write about it easily, get motivated and start cranking out the posts. The more content you write, the more people will find you. At the same time, don’t force a blog. If you loathe writing and just don’t feel like you can write compelling blog posts, do not start a blog. if you are not interested, no one else will be either. You can always post content in other formats: tweets, photos, video, animation, audio, streaming.  
4. Target your messages. Limit all of your online posts to 2-3 topics you really want to specialize in and avoid posting about content that doesn’t fit the bill. You may find other topics interesting, but if your audience is reading your blog and twitter posts for graphic design tips and you get off tangent by frequently posting about family, tv or cooking, it will seem distracting. For example, on Twitter, I try to keep my tweets focused on the topics covered in my two blogs (one blog is about social media PR and the other is about social good). Therefore, I try to tweet proportionately: 45 percent of my tweets about social media PR, 45 percent social good and only 10 percent random (new music, movies, experiences). It’s okay to have some random posts (that’s what gives you personality online). Just don’t go overboard and stay focused on your main messages.
5. Find where your new friends are. Social media goes well beyond blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Think about who you want to reach and where you might find them. Are there online communities specifically for that group? Search online for blogs, online communities and discussion forums related to your topics of interest. Then, participate in the communities and start learning why your target audience is online. This will help you figure out where your new friends might be hanging out online as well as what you could post that they would find interesting. For example, I find that Planet Green offers a great online community for topics related to my social good blog.
6. Make friends and build solid relationships. It’s time to be outgoing, which is a lot easier to do online than in person. First, get to know your new friends online. Read their blog posts and Twitter feeds and find out what they are interested in. Make friends by offering advice and helpful information, sharing links and starting up conversations by leaving comments and sending them @ replies. Don’t expect to form a relationship with an online stranger overnight. It takes time to build genuine online friendships. Simply stay tuned in to what interesting people are saying online and start from there.
7. Interact. As much as you might want to promote yourself, a genuine relationship is two-way. Learn from your new friends online and start by listening to what they have to say. Then, interact with them rather than talk about yourself. Comment on their posts and send @replies to respond to their tweets and offer helpful links and tips. Chances are if you have something in common, you will enjoy networking with each other.  I recently learned from Scott Stratten’s Blogworld keynote that the majority (about 70 percent) of your tweets should be @replies. Of course, once you are interacting, it's okay to send a promotional tweet for your yourself every once in a while.
8. Help people. You’ve heard the saying that it’s better to give than to receive. It’s true in social media. Giving will come back around. So, share your best ideas, pass job postings on to your followers, and help your online friends spread their messages. Over time, they’ll help you spread your messages, too.
9. Promote others. This goes along with helping people. How do you promote others? Well, look at how I just promoted Scott Stratten in #7 or Mara Lubell in the introduction of this piece. Share links to other people’s interesting content and retweet or repost their content. What goes around does eventually come around and you’ll find they may return the favor.
10. Brand yourself. Make sure your blog and social media sites show up in the search engine results for your name and/or the name of your business. This may not be easy if you have a common name, but it’s important. There are many other “Michelle Rogerson’s” mentioned online, but the majority of results for my name are links to my own content. While you can’t control search engine results, the more content you post, the more you are likely to show up for the keywords that describe you. Be consistent on every social media site and use the same name or keywords to brand yourself. If possible, pick one username and use it across the board for all social media sites. Buy the URL for your name as well. If you don’t have a blog or website, you can always use the URL as a landing page for your online presence. Here is a great landing page example, from a colleague, Holly Hoffman, who I met via Twitter and eventually in person at Blogworld back in October.

Making friends and networking online can be extremely valuable and rewarding. I have received many job opportunities and referrals for prospective clients and been offered wonderful speaking opportunities because of the self promotion I have done using my blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn and other tools. However, these benefits were not my first intention for becoming involved in social media. My first intention when I started communicating online was helping people by sharing my unique perspective with others and helping myself by learning from and interacting with people with similar interests. Start with that intention, and you’ll reap many rewards, including the benefits of self promotion.