Matt Chatterley of Mattched IT is our guest author for the first of a series of features about how businesses are using blogs as part of their marketing activities.

Once in a while, I wonder if the premise under which we run the Mattched IT Blog is good or not - then I stop procrastinating and get back to the business at hand - typically writing up another blog post.

The reason I tell you this is because our blog is distinctly different from most corporate blogs - partly because we are a small business - and partly because we want it to be different. The goal of our blog (and indeed, this meshes with our whole approach to Social Media) is to engage an audience that is wider than our immediate client base and to promote an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable communicating with us.

Of course, behind the scenes, it’s part of our marketing strategy and ultimately we have the aim of winning more business through Social Media. Instead of constant streams of “Hey, look at our Product X!” and so forth, we try to focus most of our blog posts on issues which come up in the day to day running of our business, topics which we as directors are interested in and items which we feel would be of interest to our audience. The intended results from this are a greater depth of interaction and promoting ourselves amongst said audience as a good source of information.

We recently won a good piece of business with our combined social media strategy.  A prospect got in touch through our website and mentioned they’d been referred to us on Twitter. Not recognising the name of the referrer, we were slightly confused, until upon further investigation we realised what had happened.

One of the people whom we interact quite often via Social Media had recommended us to someone they deal with regularly - because they thought we might be able to assist with an ongoing problem. Although said referree had not yet had time to get in touch, they had been asked if they could help with an upcoming project by one of their own clients. Because they were not able to - and presumably because we were fresh in their mind - they referred the client to us.

I think this is a great example of how maintaining a profile in the world of Social Media is valuable to a business (particularly if service or consultancy based) - and in my opinion, why you should seek deeper engagement than simply telling people what you’re selling. We regularly post links to our blog on Twitter, which has helped establish us as an authority source, and that’s what triggered the chain of events that led to us winning our new client.

Linkedin is one of the most high profile social media platforms that was specifically designed for business networking. It has over 60 million members across 200 countries, so there’s a very good chance a lot of your business contacts are using it. Here are 5 ways to use Linkedin for business:

1)    Connect with everyone

OK so not everyone you’re ever met, seen or heard of, but certainly everyone you know in a business context. Start with your colleagues, and then expand your list of contacts by inviting your clients and suppliers to connect with you. Are you on any other social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook? It’s likely many of your contacts on those sites will also be on Linkedin so connect with them too. Finally, if you attend industry events, such as conferences or networking receptions, invite everyone you meet there to connect with you on Linkedin, including journalists and bloggers. It won’t be long until you’ve built up a strong network of business contacts. Linkedin provides several tools to help you locate people you know who have profiles on the site – try the ‘People You May Know’ column on the home page, and the email address book search tool.

2)    Create a group

Linkedin has a Groups feature, which – if used correctly – can be a great platform for you to initiate dialogue with your customers. Set up a group that is relevant to your industry (for example, we recently set up a group called Content Marketing for SMEs), invite all of your contacts and encourage them to engage in discussion.

3)    Join other people’s groups

As well as setting up your own groups, sign up to other groups that are populated by your target customers and join in the conversation.

4)    Answer questions

Search for relevant questions using the Linkedin answers tool and provide free, helpful advice. You’ll be surprised how frequently this can turn into new business for your company.

5)    Set up a company profile

It is now possible to create a separate Linkedin profile for your company in addition to your individual profile. You can brand the page with your logo, write a description of your company’s products and services and link to your company’s website and business blog. Make sure you take full advantage of this feature by including your keywords throughout the profile: this will boost the chances of it being listed in both internal and external search results.

Social media success stories wanted!

Not too long ago we wrote an article about guest blogging. We’re now extending a cordial invitation to you, our readers, to be our guests on this blog. If you’d like to contribute an article to the Write My Site blog (with a link back to your website, of course) please drop us a line at info@writemysite.co.uk with the words “Guest Article” as the headline.

We’re looking for contributions from companies who’ve successfully used social media, blogging or article marketing to promote their products and services. If you’ve achieved results using these marketing methods, we’d love to hear from you.

Google has taken the next step towards real-time search results by signing deals with MySpace and Facebook to include publicly available status updates in its search index. Google recently signed a similar agreement with Twitter. According to a Google spokesperson, the partnerships will go live on Google across all English language domains (both .com and .co.uk) “over the coming days.”

When a Google user runs a search on a particular topic, they will now receive real-time updates from the three social media sites as well as the usual list of search results – a development the business community would do well to take on board. Search engine optimization efforts will now need to include a social media presence if businesses are to succeed in putting their brands at the top of the Google search results for relevant search terms.

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Tom Stocky, Google’s director of product management said: “People want the most up-to-date information and that’s what services such as Twitter have provided a great platform for – which is why we are really happy to work with them and gain access to that information so we can deeply embed it into our search system.”

Stocky emphasized the importance of speed to Google search: “Search speed means two things: one – how quickly results come back to you and two – how quickly we can update the information. Adding real-time results to our product will massively help with the latter part of this definition. We have to make our results as fresh and relevant as possible.”

Bing is also taking steps towards real-time search results. It is currently running a separate site which integrates ‘tweets’, although it has yet to integrate Twitter updates into its main search. The company is also working on a similar dedicated site for Facebook updates.

Content has to be at the centre of a successful link building strategy. That’s the verdict from Bing, the new search engine from Microsoft which aims to rival Google. The search engine’s webmaster blog clearly states:

“We’ve said it before, and you’ll hear it said again: content is king. Providing high-quality content on your pages is the single most important thing you can do to attract inbound links.

“If your content is unique and useful to people, your site will naturally attract visitors and, as a result, automatically get good links to your site. By focusing on great content, over time, your site will naturally acquire those coveted inbound links.”

Here are Bing’s top tips for stellar web content:

•  Develop your site as a business brand and be consistent about that branding in your content

•  Identify relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media people and let them know about your site and its content

•  Write and publish concise, informative press releases online as developments warrant

•  Publish expert articles to online article directories

•  Participate in relevant blogs and forums and refer back to your site’s content when applicable (Note that some blogs and forums add the rel=”nofollow” attribute to links created in user-generated content (UGC). While creating links to your content in these locations won’t automatically create backlinks for search engines, readers who click through and like what they find may create outbound links to your site, and those are good.)

•  Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to connect to industry influencers to establish contacts, some of whom may connect back to you (be sure you have your profiles set up with links back to your website first)

•  Create an online newsletter on your site with e-mail subscription notifications

•  Launch a blog or interactive user forum on your site

•  Join and participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums

•  Ultimately, strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry and let people know that your website contains your published wit and wisdom

1) Make more money

Let’s start with the main reason why most people use Twitter for business: to identify potential customers and generate sales.

Micro-blogging is all about people. It’s not about getting up on a virtual podium with a megaphone and making noise about your organisation: it’s about building a network of individuals and getting to know them.

Establish your brand in its industry by building a fan base or, as it’s called on Twitter, a network of ‘followers’. Start with people you know: your customers, suppliers and business network, then add suitable people to your network by running keyword searches through tools such as Tweetdeck and Tweepsearch. [Tip: every month, run a search through Tweepular.com to identify people who aren’t following you back, then un-follow them. It’s supposed to be a two-way thing.]

Engage with your followers regularly and they’ll start re-tweeting your posts and becoming advocates of your brand. Not all of your followers will necessarily become your customers but they’ll do something just as important, which is to advocate your message to their network. From our own experience at Write My Site, most of the business we’ve generated through Twitter has been the result of other people re-tweeting our posts or sending us public messages which were spotted by their followers.

2) Generate PR coverage

Follow journalists and editors in your industry, send them an introduction and ask them to follow you for industry updates and breaking news. Then, when you’ve got a press release available, put it on your website and send the journalist a message with the link. Interacting with journalists is no different to interacting with the rest of your business network, so take an interest in their updates, re-tweet anything that might do them a favour, and engage in dialogue with them where appropriate. (It’s much cheaper than taking them to lunch at The Ivy.)

3) Find out what your customers think

Invite your customers to follow you on Twitter. Follow them back, and ask for their honest feedback about your products, services and brand. Used properly, Twitter can be a great tool for learning what your customers like and dislike about what you do. Look at negative feedback as a gift: you’ve just been handed free information about what your business needs to improve. Twitter is also a great way to conduct initial customer research about new product and service ideas. Can you distil the idea into 140 characters? (If not, it’s too complex.) When you’ve articulated the concept, put it out there and see what comes back. Use the feedback to refine the concept and develop a highly targeted product or service.

This checklist was put together by Internet Marketing expert Nikki Pilkington, who was in turn inspired by Social Media expert Chris Brogan. Follow these social media marketing strategies every day to develop your relationships with customers, future customers, suppliers and other business contacts.

Daily Social Media Marketing Checklist

Twitter

1.    Retweet 7 things – to my mind, retweeting is the life blood of Twitter, and sharing of information is key. But let’s not forget, retweeting someone’s tweets instils a sense of loyalty too, and they’re more likely to retweet your items in return. DON’T retweet willy nilly – before doing so think “Are my followers going to be interested in this?”

2.    Reply to at least 5 people, with FULL replies – Twitter should be a 2 way thing – use it to build relationships, not as a broadcast medium. Don’t just reply with a ‘I agree’ or ‘Thanks’ – take the time to reply with a full message, a thought, a question.

3.    Recommend 1 person you admire – bring their tweets to the attention of your followers – you’ve found your followers someone new to follow, and you never know, it might catch on and you’ll be the focus of the next recommendation. People like to be appreciated – if someone’s done something good for you, let the Twitterverse know!

4.    Follow back at least 10 people - not following for the sake of following, but check out your new followers and see who’s worth following back. Chris and I both use an autofollow system (I cull the spammers, broadcasters and people of no interest to me regularly), but you could do this by hand if you have the time.

5.    10 minutes of polite chit chat goes far – it’s easy to ignore people who send you messages if you don’t know them, but spending a few minutes chatting might be the difference between them remembering and recommending you or just dumping you for being rude .

6.    Tweet 3 business related Tweets – these could be related to your industry, or links to your own blogs or products / services – people seeing your tweets will begin to align you with that industry in their mind. After all, a lot of us are using Twitter to promote our business.

7.    Tweet 2 personally related Tweets – let people see the person behind the Twitter account. I’m not talking about ‘I had a cheese sandwich for lunch’, but the more people feel they know about you, the more they feel they’ve built up a relationship with you.

8.    Ask at least one question that requires answers - asking questions and discussing the answers moves Twitter back into that 2 way medium, and who knows what nuggets of info you’ll find out? My favourite is to ask people what 3 words they think of when they see my name – the answers are illuminating (and sometimes a little bit odd!)

Facebook

1.    Check in on Birthdays on the homepage - it takes 2 seconds to post a Happy Birthday message on someone’s wall, or drop them a Facebook message. Posting on someone’s wall means that all their friends get to see your message too. Chris recommends sending the Birthday Wishes by email for the surprise factor, which is also cool and maybe a little more personal!

2.    Respond to any comments on your wall - it’s polite to respond to any comments on your wall, if they warrant a reply, so get into the habit of doing so before you forget!

3.    Post at least one status message daily – keep people updated and keep you in their minds – don’t get over eager though and post all of your Twitter updates (including retweets and @ messages) into your Facebook status feed – it’s one of the quickest ways to find yourself ‘hidden’! Use the different parts of the status update – make a comment, share a video, share a link – promote conversation where possible!

4.    Share at least 3 interesting updates you find - if someone posts an update you like, use the ’share’ button to post it to your profile – much like retweeting on Twitter it promotes the originator and allows you to share new things with your contacts.

5.    Comment on at least 7 updates or status messages – it doesn’t take long to put a quick comment or ‘like’ on the status updates on your feed page – and people like to have comments; who knows, they may reciprocate  Also remember that comments you post on people’s links or updates are available for all of their contacts to view.

6.    Leave a message on 2 fan pages – spend a few seconds posting on a fan page – not only will you help the page out, you’ll reach people you’re not connected to

7.    Leave a message on the walls of 2 people – not been in touch with someone for a while? A simple ‘hey, how are you doing’ message on their wall shows them you’re thinking of them and keeps you in touch without taking up loads of yours or their time.

8.    Respond to event invitations – I respond to all event invitations by posting on their wall, whether I can attend or not. If I can’t I wish them well and apologise for not being able to make it. A link to my website mens they can find my details if they want to, and I’ve made many new contacts this way.

9.    Recommend at least one person to your contacts – OK, you might not want to do this every day, but in the same way as you’d recommend someone on twitter, why not do the same on Facebook  you can do this in your status update and it doesn’t take long. I sometimes post details of pages I’ve become a fan of here.

10.    Add at least one update to your group / fan page - I’m as guilty as anyone of not always doing this, but the worst thing you can do with a group / fan page / business page is leave it stagnant – update it daily even if you think no-one is reading!

LinkedIn

1.    Accept any invitations it makes sense to accept – a minute or so each day accepting invitations means they don’t pile up and become unmanageable. If you don’t think it’s sensible to be connected, then by all means don’t accept.

2.    Enter any business cards to invite them to LinkedIn – if you network offline it makes sense to connect to the people you’ve met on LinkedIn (and any other online networks they’re a part of)

3.    Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer answers - showcase your expertise with a quick answer or two – I’ve gained business from this, and you neverknow what opportunities may arise.

4.    Provide 1 recommendation every few days – if you’ve worked with someone or are happy to recommend them, then write an honest recommendation -  people like to be appreciated, and you’ll find that you get honest recommendations in return.

5.    Update your status at least once a day – people seem to forget that there’s a status update facility on LinkedIn too, and it feeds into an ‘activity feed’ that is shown on your contacts’ LinkedIn home page.

6.    Make at least one introduction - again this doesn’t need to be every day, but if you see someone needs or wants something and you know someone who can help – introduce them – it makes sense and makes all three of you happy!

Blogs

1.    Reply to at least 5 comments on your blogs – if people have taken the time to comment on your blog, it’s polite to reply to at least a few of them where possible. It makes them more likely to reply again in future, and stimulates conversation on your blog.

2.    Comment on a couple of your commentators’ blogs – follow the links your commentators leave, and have a quick read of their blogs. Repay their comments by leaving a few of your own. You get to make them happy and leave a link to your site. Win/win I say!

3.    Stumble or Socially Bookmark your commenters’ blogs – if you like what they write, give them a bit of a traffic boost by Stumbling them – they might do the same for you.

4.    Write the occasional blog post promoting another blog – not only is it an easy blog post to write, new content for your blog / site, but it helps your readers find new blogs (so they love you) and the owner of the blog you’ve recommended will love you for ever more. (This may be a slight exaggeration).

5.    Email a synopsis of recent posts at least once a month – I have to admit I’m a bit lax on this, but when I have done it regularly (to members of an opt in list of course) it has resulted inmore traffic, more comments, and ultimately more enquiries.

6.    Find 2 new blogs to comment on every day – it’s easy to stick with the blogs you know, but new blogs are cropping up all the time – take a few minutes to find them and leave a couple of comments. You get to read new things, leave your ‘brand’ in new places, and help out a blog that might need comments.

Forums

I’ve generalised here as you could be a member of many forums, and they’re not all the same.

1.    Reply to at least 2 threads every day – it’s easy to let your forums go when you’rebusy, but it really takes no time at all to scan through recent threads and drop in a couple of replies. You’re helping to keep the forum going, making sure people don’t forget about you, and people love people who reply to their threads.

2.    Post one new thread – I admit this one sounds easier than it is, and it’s not great t post for posting’s sake – but if you have news, have read something in the news, or simply want to raise an issue, don’t wait for someone else to do it – start a thread yourself!

3.    Make a point of thanking people who reply to you – a takes seconds to drop someone a line to say thanks – they’ll appreciate it more than you imagine.

4.    Accept any connections that make sense – lots of forums allow you to ‘connect’ with other members – it’s worth accepting any connections that make sense to you, and maybe initiating a few too.

5.    Recommend a member’s blog or website and say why – in the same way as you’d recommend someone on Twitter etc, a quick post saying why you like someone’s blog or website, especially if they’ve done work for you, goes a long way. Some forums have specific groups for this, so make sure you’re witin the rules. And granted, you wouldn’t do this every day, but there’s nothing to stop you from replying to someone’s posts on a thread with a quick ‘love your blog’ message.

Analysts at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley were given a run for their money this month, when 15-year-old intern Matthew Robson produced a report giving unprecedented insight into teenagers’ use of different media, revealing that young people are eager to try new media technologies and switch among them, but that their usage is primarily dictated by their very limited spending power.

Robson “texted a few friends to get ideas” when asked by the bank’s European media research desk to produce an account of his friends’ media and communications habits, and wrote up the report in a single day.

His findings made stark reading for the bank’s clientele. Teenagers see advertising as “extremely annoying and pointless”. They “cannot be bothered” to read a newspaper, never buy CDs or use yellow pages directories, and generally try to avoid paying for anything other than concerts and cinema tickets.

Most teenagers (8 out of 10 according to Robson) are fond of music, but reluctant to pay for it, preferring to download it illegally. He notes that teenagers from high-income families play music on iPods, whereas those from low-income families tend to use mobile phones.

Unsurprisingly, the internet is hugely popular, with most teenagers “heavily active” on a combination of social networking sites. Facebook is the most common, but Twitter has quickly fallen out of favour, since teenagers prefer to use their limited phone credit to text friends rather than updating their Twitter feed.

The biggest challenge in Robson’s report is to advertisers, since it is apparent that teenagers actively avoid advertising, changing channels during commercial breaks, ‘ignoring’ conventional outdoor advertising, and considering online banner ads and pop-ups “extremely annoying”. Robson does suggest, however, that teens might be a lot more responsive to viral marketing and to quirky or unusual campaigns.

Robson’s report has caused a huge stir across the world, with his findings being debated by banks, newspapers and media conglomerates, as well as many thousands of internet users. It remains to be seen whether it will make any difference to the way the media targets the next generation.