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Welcome to the liveblog of the BlogHer '10 panel: Professional: ROYO - Bringing Sexy Back to Branding - Do You Have the Social Media Strategy and Tools for Success? Click here for more info.
The plethora of social media tools and opportunities can be overwhelming, but you don’t have to fake it! In this session, Susan Getgood, Beth Blecherman and Kimberley Blaine talk about how you can use social media to build your brand. We’ll discuss best practices for online branding, including how to integrate your efforts across multiple platforms -- social networks, video syndication, traditional media and even offline events.
Susan Getgood:
Welcome.
What we're really going to talk about is branding and using social media tools to build your brand or, if you prefer to call it, your reputation.
You have to be consistent among all of the online tools.
When we came up with the provocative name it was triggered by the Justin Timberlake song. But it actually fits into what we talk about, because sexy isn't sex - it's about what happens in the mind. That's where branding happens, too.
We are not our full, whole selves online. It's not an exact match for you. So we want to talk about how you create that persona that is close to you.
The first question is, "Who do you want to be online?"
Using social media tools to build your brand has a lot to do with what you want to achieve. What are your objectives?
The basic tools we're going to talk about:
Blogs and Websites
Facebook/Linked In
Social curation tools
Video
Email Newsletters
Location Based Tools (Foursquare)
And don't forget this - face-to-face is also part of your branding strategy.
You need to decide which of these tools fit your needs best.
Beth:
Let's stand back - What's the most important thing about your brand? Your identity. Should you use a real name or a brand name?
I decided to use my brand name, but using your real name is a hot trend right now. You can use http://checkusernames.com/ to see if the name is available across all the online services.
To monitor your online reputation, you can use Google Alerts and Tweet Alarms.
What should you do on Twitter?
Determine strategy and stick to it, but throw in personal tweets and fun.
Daily Twitter tasks -
Tweet useful information and share relevant links
Answer questions
Find people
Respond to people
Social Curation Tools
Content & Media Curation - Posterous, Tumblr, Pearltrees
Rss: Bloglines, MyYahoo, Google Reader
Updates: Twitterfeed, Ping.fm, Atomkeeper
Kimberly Blaine:
I want to mention Mom Bloggers Club - her eNews is great.
I am not a mom blogger, I am a multimedia mom, and I'm here to talk about video. Why video? Why do you want to incorporate it into your blogs?
If you want to get closer to your audience, you use video.
Around the Web, it was "Content is King," but it's not anymore, it's your distribution. Who is watching your videos? You want to syndicate. Ask your blogging buddies to use you as a guest video blogger.
There are syndication tools, too, like Howcast.
Why do video producers love Twitter? We have found that the people who tweet will watch a video longer than anyone else. I live on Twitter so that I can get more views to my video. Twitter is going to be one of your best friends when it comes to linking people to your site to watch your video blogs.
If you're considering video and you don't want to spend a dime, just turn on your flip, make sure you have good audio and good lighting and go.
People love video, and Google loves video. It's Google juice.
You can use video to entertain or you can use it build your brand. People are forgetting to brand the beginning and end of their blogs.
You want to be on as many channels as possible - YouTube, Vimeo, Blip, etc.
Susan:
Beth has a nice way of explaining why you need to talk about all these tools together...
Beth:
I started out in technology and then I started blogging. I decided from the beginning that my brand would be technology and parenting. My brand name - techmama - I take that on Twitter and Facebook. Carry your brand name across video, too.
Susan:
Let's talk about what each of these tools is good for...
When you look at blogs and Web sites, social curation tools and video are about sharing ideas. Facebook, Linked In and Twitter are about creating connections. You want to have at least one from column A and one from column B. Think about a strategy that includes both sharing and connection.
Kimberly:
E-mail newsletters are still important. If I didn't have
