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©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

One of the questions I am asked most frequently these days by clients is about how to get started using social networking as a business tool.

More specifically, they can see the appeal and are feeling pulled towards it, but are also quite nervous about the prospect of getting sucked into the social networking time-suck wormhole. Which is a really reasonable concern. I won’t deny having fallen into that wormhole a time or two before finding my bearings. Also, quite frankly, they are concerned about doing it “wrong” or looking like newbies or even worse, being perceived as inept in their initial fumblings. Again, not an unreasonable concern. Who wants to put their professional reputation on the line and end up looking like a wonk? No, me either.

Here’s what has worked well for me and what I have been telling my clients: ease into it.

One of the ways I  get comfortable in a new scenario in life is to ease myself into it. I look around a bit, observe…see what folks are doing. This helps allay my fear that I am going to be way off base and gives me some clues as to things like etiquette and social cues. The same is true with social networking online.

Social Media Plan of Action!
Just because you sign up for a Twitter account doesn’t mean you have to start Tweeting right away. Sign up for an account, mark it private, and find some folks you think are interesting and follow them. Then just sit back and pay attention. How often do they post? Too often? At what point do you find yourself dismissing them? At what point do you find you’ve become engaged? What mix of personal vs. business posts do you respond to? All of these cues can inform how you want to form your own online presence.

Start Slowly
Once you’ve spent some time observing and figuring out the do’s and don’ts, dip your toe in. Spend 10 minutes a day on it. Send your first Tweet or Facebook status update and see how it goes. If the world doesn’t stop spinning, if you didn’t break the internet, if you get no discernible reaction, try it again. Start to get into a comfortable (and time limited) rhythm. I find myself realizing a few times a day that I’ve just had a conversation or a thought that would be helpful or fun to share.

Share the Love
Also, I find it really helpful when people retweet (yes, it’s a word) resources and posts. Doing so is a great way to get in the habit of posting without having to generate 100% original content. And people will certainly be happy (and, for the most part, thankful in a demonstrative way) that you’ve passed on what they had to share.

Off you go, set up your social media account, start lurking and then share the love!!

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

We’re working on some projects together and it’s one of the pitch points that clients are looking for in a custom WordPress website package. I’ve been doing some research and found that a few people are using WP as an intranet, but it seems like they’re just cobbling together a bunch of existing plugins for calendaring, inter-office communications, etc. If anybody has wisdom or experience to share re: specifics on setting up a WP site as both CMS and an efficient intranet? I’d love to hear from you!!!

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

http://remarkablogger.com/2008/10/27/blog-pages-posts-categories-and-tags-help/

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

Laurie is one of my long-time, much-loved clients with whom I have worked on everything from her very first website to creating an industry-leading online learning center. She recently told me that although she was an admitted technophobe (her words, not mine!), she knew that she wanted to move forward with her website as well as her social media strategy. We came up with a plan, sorted out the details and moved ahead. In 2 (very busy) weeks, we carried over all of her previous website content, built a new WordPress site, added some blog posts and got her off and running into the wonderful world of Web 2.0!!  Welcome Laurie, I hope you find it a hospitable, growth-promoting and life-affirming place to be!

View the new At Your Home Familycare website »

Interested in having your own WordPress website? Wondering what that process entails? Curious about budget range? Get in touch »

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

Do you know what your top 5 keyword targets are? Here are a few of the available tools you can use to figure it out:

1. Google Keyword Tool – my fave, you can save results in .txt or .csv files
2. Wordtracker
3. Keyword Discovery

» Here’s a really clear and helpful article by Michael Martine of Remarkablogger on: WordPress SEO – Understanding Keywords

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

It’s no wonder, it seems to be one part of the whole “Web 2.0″ world that, for most folks, is not reachable simply by an intuitive leap (myself included). It took me a while to grasp the idea that I could subscribe to a blog or website and have the information sent to me. As a *totally random* example, if you just LOVE this post and desperately want to get updates whenever I add to my blog, go to the “Subscribe” button on the right-sidebar and click on “Subscribe” – I’m just saying, it’s an option. Well, back on point, I just found an awesome (and amusing) short video explaining the basic concepts of how RSS, blogs and blog readers work!

See the video » HERE (Click on the Play button on the lower left corner of the video.)

Just in case you’re not a video fan, here are a couple of links to articles on RSS, blogs and blog readers:

• How to explain RSS the Oprah way
• What is RSS?

Lisa ♥

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

I recently designed a WordPress site for my dear and longtime friend, Tess, who is the owner of PhoenixUrbanArt. Her company offers temporary tattoos and face painting services at parties, events, faires, etc. Super fun and waaaaay cool talented folks!!! One of my favorite parts of being an entrepreneur is being able to work with people I know and love.

View the website here » http://phoenixurbanart.com/

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.

There are some pretty big names and a wide variety of topics. I’ve registered for:

• Stacey Lawson – Creative Power: Five Principles for Effortless Creation in Work & Life
• Bernie Siegel – The Art of Living and Healing
• Kathy Hagenbuch – 7 Leverage Strategies to Beat Entrepreneurial Paralysis and Explode Your Profits

I’m currently taking Mark Silver’s Heart of Money Transformational Journey class via MaestroConference and it’s quite cool. He’s able to pair us up on the call so we can do partner exercises and then bring us all back together. Each of us gets an individual pin # so he can greet us by name and see who dials into the call. We can push a # key to indicate we have a question and he calls on us by name. Gotta love technology!!!

http://maestromonth.com/

©2010 Lisa Marie Designs. All Rights Reserved.