This is a "day in the life" type video snippet of the Social Media Mastermind Roundtable I attend pretty much every Saturday morning.  Like any mastermind type group, it's a great venue for sharing best practices among a group of like-minded professionals who, in this case, discuss best practices for social media in each of our respective businesses.

In addition to the snippet above, I also created a testimonials video for this same group.  More than a bunch of people singing praises for this particular group, you'll want to watch it if you have any inkling of starting a similar group in your area.  Because, one of the questions in the testimonials video is "What advise would you give for others who may be thinking of starting a similar group in their area?"

The responses were pretty insightful.  Anyway, I'll post that next.

By the way, have you visited my new blog over at MelAclaro.com?  It's a site dedicated to discussions about video, video-blogging and social marketing using video. See you there!

If you've been following along, we're now onto Day 3.  Part 1 was posted yesterday, and today, Part 2 of Day 3 was posted, with a video which addresses the topic about "Which Blogging Platform?", for those who are still on the fence and still thinking about the mechanics of jumping in.  

If you haven't added MelAclaro.com in your RSS feed reader yet, or subscribed for updates, please do so when you head over there.  

Talk to you again soon.

Last week, I launched a new site over at MelAclaro.com.  It's a more niched focus on some of the things I've found myself practicing more and more on this blog over time.  That is, the business applications of social video.  

I've fielded enough questions like those below to know that there's a need for a place for me to do a brain dump about the hard-knocks and learnings I've had in the last decade with video and its effective and efficient use in: blogs, social media and business.  

• How do I get started with video blogging?
• What special equipment do I need?
• What special hosting is required?
• How do I get the crisp-looking video images like you have in your videos?
• What settings should I use for bitrate, dimensions, and file formats?
• What's the process for getting video from my camera, through my computer, and on to the web?
• What if I don't want to host some videos on a public server like YouTube?  What options do I have?  How do set it up?
• What, really, is the difference between a blog and a videoBlog?

And, while that theme itself would still technically fit within the lineup for BCB, I really wanted to focus even more on video blogging, video-based marketing, and basically tracing a roadmap for the process I've gone through for setting up an online presence with a video-based blog.

What's Happening to BusinessCasualBlog?

BCB isn't shutting down.  I'll still be posting about the confluence of social media, business and learning.  The posts here may drop off to about once per week during the time I ramp up MelAclaro.com.  But, overall, both sites will complement each other.  

You can read more about the move by reading my write-up about on the "About" page at MelAclaro.com.  In the meantime, I hope you'll join me there by clicking this link to signup for the Social Media Marketing Tips newsletter.  You'll also get a free copy of my eBook Social Media Marketing Essentials Guide For Small Business Professionals.

Thanks in advance.  Here's that link again to signup for my newsletter.  See you over at MelAclaro.com!   

(Photo courtesy: Marco Belluci, Flickr, Creative Commons)

Stop!  Before you click the video above...

You should know, I'm launching another blog!  If you haven't already done so, subscribe now to my Social Media Marketing Tips newsletter.  Of course, when you do, you'll also get access to my free eBook: Social Media Marketing Essentials Guide For Small Business Professionals.

What's Going On?

Just so ya know, when you click the video above, your browser will redirect to MelAclaro.com.  That's where the rest of the "Taboo" series, will be posted moving forward.  Don't worry, I'm not shunting you off to someone else.  I'm the same guy at both sites.  I just wanted to let you know about that before you clicked.  It's a precaution in case you're like me and one of my two cats:  move our food bowl and we become immobile with confusion.  ;) 

I'll post a follow up article soon about about the new site I'm hosting at MelAclaro.com.  (a.k.a. VideoMarketingRoadmap.com)

Is BusinessCasualBlog.com Shutting Down...?

I'll explain more about what's up in a follow up article.  Soon.  I promise.

This video is one of the dozens of free social media marketing video training and "how to" modules on Jara University.  It's packed with hours of free social media marketing training for business.  It includes social media marketing tips for: LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging, Content / eMail Marketing, professional/expert seminars, a whole videoBook, eBooks and much more.  You can register now for free by downloading the (also free) Social Media Marketing Essentials Mini Course and newsletter.      

Get it now... here.  

The "Day 2" Series (cont.) - What Are "Listening Posts?"

This social media marketing video picks up where we left off yesterday on the big picture of "hub and spokes."  

In Part 2 of this series (this one), I basically jabber along about an overview of the role of the "little blue bubbles" in the hub-and-spokes diagram.  These "listening posts" essentially represent the mortar that binds your hub-and-spokes strategy together.  And, perhaps more pointedly, if there is any part of your whole social media engagement strategy that is appropriate to be "outsourced" to some kind of automation, this would be it.   

To clarify:  I'm not saying you should automate the responses you give to people whom you hear is saying stuff about you. Rather, it will help you be more efficient to automate the part of that whole process that informs you when someone is saying stuff about you.  (Good or bad.)  Then, when you find out, your responses should be personally written or created by you.

Does that make sense?  In addition to the automation alert engines I point out in this video, what other automation tools do you use to keep you informed of keywords and key phrases being "spoken" in the social sphere?

This video is one of the dozens of free social media marketing video training and "how to" modules on Jara University.  It's packed with hours of free social media marketing training for business.  It includes social media marketing tips for: LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging, Content / eMail Marketing, professional/expert seminars, a whole videoBook, eBooks and much more.  You can register now for free by downloading the (also free) Social Media Marketing Essentials Mini Course and newsletter.      

Get it now... here.  

The "Day 2 Series" - The Big Picture: Hub and Spokes

This social media marketing video follows on the heels of last week's "Day 1" series.  In last week's series we ran the gamut of:

• New media philosophy
• Content philosophy
• Relationship building, and
• Brand philosophy

In this week's series ("Day 2"), I'll be covering two main topics:

• The Big Picture - Hub and Spokes
• The Big Picture - Lead Generation (tomorrow)

The gist with Hub and Spokes is basically presenting a framework for beginners and organizational departments to think about how to approach a plan for social media marketing.  

At the core -- the hub -- is a place to which you'll want to invite visitors where they can have a better sense of what you and/or your business is about.  What's your value proposition?  What's your expertise?  Do the quality of your services and product offerings match the things you speak about?  

And, it's for all those reasons is why you want a blog (typically) at the center of your social networking / social media framework.  Now, that may not necessarily always be the case.  I've actually seen some interesting marketing efforts using Facebook as the hub.  It can work.  But, for most of us, a blog will offer the most flexibility and Google-juice.  (Why give any more of it to Facebook?)  With a blog at the center of your hub and spoke framework, it'll make sense to keep the juice for yourself so you can increase revisits to your lead capture form and marketing funnel entry points.  

Your Turn

Thoughts?  What tactic do you use today?  Do you drive traffic towards a central blog?  Or, is Facebook or some other platform what you prefer to drive traffic to?  And then, when traffic does come, what type of media do you tend to use there?  Text?  Pictures?  Video?  Audio?  

I talk about a lot of this, too, by the way in my free eBook, the Social Media Marketing Essentials for Small Business Professionals.  Feel free to grab it the next time you'r on the eBook's page. 

[Video transcript available.  Click "Continue..." below.]

Video Transcript for Social Media Marketing Tips - The Big Picture

Okay, welcome to Day 2 of this series.

Mel Aclaro here and today we’ll be talking about the bigger picture with social media engagement, lead generation and relationship building.

What I’ve done here is create a little graphic to show the big picture of what I like to refer to as the hubs-and-spokes model.

And if you look at the middle here, we talk about something I call the hub…. which, typically should be your blog.  I’ll talk in a future video about why this should be a blog, but right now let’s just keep it at a high level.

Now your blog is crucial.  It’s a source of the information you share with the world about your values, interests and your passions.  And, ultimately, everything you publish comes back here as some of your visitors return to inquire more about you or your services.

This is actually a source of your content. 

I actually talk about this model in more detail in a book I wrote for real estate professionals last year.  It’s called The Social Media Report: A Field Guide for Real Estate Professionals.  But, really, the model applies not just for real estate professionals.  In fact, you can be just about any professional in any industry and it applies just as well.  I actually turned the whole book into a video book, and I’d like to share one section with you now from Chapter 3 of that video book.

Now, I’m gonna play it for you in just a moment, and in parts you’ll hear me refer to Chapter 4 of the book.  Don’t worry about that reference too much for purposes of this training session.  Remember, you’re getting a snapshot from the whole book…

Okay, so here’s that segment from Chapter 3.

[screencast]

Okay, so the main points to pull away from all of that is that you want to try and fashion the arrangement of your social networks in a sort of outside/inside fashion.  The general idea is to manage your social networks outside of your blog, in a way that you make initial contact with people through some of the groups, forums and search filters that these social networks make available to you.  

You want to find people in those groups, forums and search filters that represent your target demographic.  

Then, using the help of automated searching engines, you can then automate notifications you receive whenever certain words pop up in the social web that might clue you in to conversations that you should join.

I talk about this more in Chapter 4 of my videobook on the topic about Listening Posts... (end of Part 1)

In this post, I just wanted to update you about it now officially being on my "Mel Recommends list."  Find it, and other marketing / productivity applications I've endorsed in the topline menu bar above.

If you have questions about how I've used any of the applications listed there, drop me a line.  (No technical support questions, please... unless, of course, you're an existing client.  In which case researching your technical support question with the vendor will likely already be bundled in with our coaching or training arrangement.)

Otherwise, feel free to ask me about how I use the application itself, strategies for use, productivity applications or marketing techniques.

What are your thoughts?  Have you used any of the applications and/or services in my list.  What has been your experience?

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