Writing a blog takes dedication and perseverance. Knowing what you want to write about and what your readers like comes with practice. So, as you continue to build a backlog of blog posts you might want to consider repurposing them to extend your reach and grow your audience. Why do you ask? People might not know that your blog exists, but if you can appeal to them through other outlets they may be more inclined to subscribe to your site. By repurposing your content you can breathe new life into your words and showcase them in a variety of formats to give your blog additional exposure.

1. Document Sharing Sites

Using sites like Scribd and DocStoc are where you can repurpose your blog post into a PDF, slideshow or Word document for millions of people to access, download and enjoy. These sites allow you to include images and links in your file, both of which make your content more engaging and SEO-worthy. If you’re interested in cashing in on your repurposed posts you can choose between selling them on DocStoc, as well as giving them away for free. Just remember to include a sentence or two about yourself, your email address and URL so that people know how to get to your blog.

In addition to making it very easy to repurpose your content, Scribd and DocStoc also make it super easy to promote your new document creations with an embedding option. You can use this feature to embed and share your document and also give others the opportunity to pass along to others with the simple click of a button.

2. Newsletters

A newsletter is an excellent way to provide readers with an opportunity to receive exclusive articles, information and tips that aren’t necessarily available through your main blog. You can easily transform older blog posts into modern pieces by updating their content and summarizing key points. This will make your posts easy to digest and it also highlights relevant details that readers will appreciate having in a consolidated format.

3. Squidoo

One of the leading social community sites and Seth Godin’s brainchild, Squidoo in the top 500 most visited and 300 most viewed websites in the United States. Users build custom pages, known as lenses, which are actually much more like single blog posts on a specific subject. You can easily gather a collection of blog posts that have been written on a particular topic and then create a lens from them.

Squidoo is very simple to use and employs a CMS (content management system) that requires little to no knowledge of HTML. This is a bonus for some of us that are technically challenged when it comes to assembling aesthetically pleasing online pieces. Another nice to know is that 5% of Squidoo’s revenue is donated to charity and nearly half of all lensmasters donate their royalties to one of 65 featured charities on Squidoo. Definitely a pay-it-forward kinda place.

4. Article Directories

Probably one of the best ways to whip up some attention for you content is through one of the thousands of online article directories available. The toughest part of your job is trying to determine which article directory to use. Two of the most popular and most reputable are ezinearticle.com and articlesbase.com. Depending on which site you utilize, you’ll want to include a few links and your byline. When you repurpose your blog post on an article site try to keep it less about you and more about your reader. In other words, too much “me-me-me” may delay or prohibit approval of your posting.

What are some other unique ways that you’re leveraging your blog posts? Share below and help everyone learn something new.

As one of the leading social networks, Twitter has become more than just a place for friends to keep in touch with one another. It is also a leading platform that businesses are now using to stay in touch with current customers and expand their reach to new clients. One of the central ways to stand apart from other Twitter users is with a custom background. Not only can you brand your Twitter page, but you can also promote yourself in creative ways via a Twitter background too.

Canned Backgrounds

If you’re feeling creatively challenged, or if you’re strapped for time and looking for a quick fix then visit one of these Twitter background sites and explore patterns, prints and images that can be used to spice up your page.

TwitBacks

Twitrounds

Twitter Background Images

My Tweet Space

Themeleon

Custom Built

Here’s a little secret, you can use PowerPoint and Mac’s Keynote software to design your own fancy Twitter background. There are two main elements to consider before you start to build-out graphic elements, monitor resolution size and final image size.

W3Schools current trends show that more than 76% of computers are using a screen resolution higher than 1024×768. The higher the resolution, the more that a user will see of the Twitter background. Having a grid that shows you how many pixels your background components need to be constructed at will make things much easier to put together.

Depending on what resolution size you decide to design your background for your placement dimensions will vary. Try giving yourself a width of 250 pixels from the left margin for your left hand graphics and at least 85 pixels from the top header bar. Experiment to see what works best for your layout and design. Here’s a sample background template from Smashing Magazine to help illustrate how dimensions can be laid out.

Remember that the final size of your design is important because Twitter caps the size of backgrounds at 800k. Try to use JPGs and lower resolution images to avoid ending up with a file that’s 10MB in size.

When you’re ready to start building a background, open up PowerPoint or Keynote and create a blank slide that’s sized to the resolution of your choosing. Use the rulers and drag and drop guides to help you position your background elements. Once you’re satisfied with your creation do a Save As or Export and process as a JPG, GIF or PNG. Try uploading to your Twitter account to see how it looks.

Sidebar Promotion

Just like tweets are limited to 140 characters or less, Twitter bios must be 59 characters or less. That doesn’t leave a ton of room to promote your brand. That’s where the sidebar area comes in handy. You can use the left hand side of your Twitter background to feature other social media profiles, your blog URL, contact information and even some additional highlights about your brand, product and services.

Stellar Backgrounds

A collection of creative Twitter backgrounds is featured below for inspiration and ideas on to set-up your own. Enjoy!

twitter.com/kriscolvin

twitter.com/coreyweb

twitter.com/ijustine

twitter.com/robingood

twitter.com/elitistsnob

If you’re still hankering for more then check out some of these outstanding links and resources below:

How To: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace | Mashable

Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices | Chris Spooner

A Tutorial On Designing a Twitter Background | SEO MoFo

Not all of us have been friended by our mothers on Facebook, but event if you haven’t you’ll love this hilarious video. Have a fantastic weekend!

Ten years ago the term social media didn’t mean much and it certainly wasn’t a term that dominated search engine results like it does today. Globally, social media has risen in popularity and become the must-have for every marketing plan, kinda like what Starbucks is to coffee and java drinkers. Plain and simple, it’s on every corner and on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Social media has proven to be an incredible way to rally people to take action and join like-minded individuals together who believe in common causes, especially those related to your health.

If you’re wondering how social media can be a health motivator or improve someone’s health, read on.

1. Smoking Cessation

The power of social media has not been lost on city and state government. They understand that by creating a positive online environment to help people quit smoking can reduce healthcare costs, improve their quality of life and give smokers a fighting chance at kicking the habit for good. For instance, New York City Department of Public Health’s Facebook Page, NYC Quits Smoking/I Quit has more than 5,000 fans and Florida Department of Health’s Twitter-based program, Qwitter, is not far behind. Studies indicate that web programs nearly double a patient’s chances of quitting.

2. Weight Loss

Don’t confuse weight loss via social media with any of the spammy ‘get thin quick’ schemes that so many people are pushing. A true model for weight loss supported by social media like the example seen in SparkPeople.com. SparkPeople.com is a free website that ranks as America’s second-largest consumer health website, second to WebMD. The site launched the #1 self-help and weight-loss book earlier this year, The Spark. What makes this social media site so succsfful is that it bring people together who have one thing in common – a strong desire to lose weight, but do it the right way. Let’s face it, shedding a couple pounds is always a healthy improvement.

3. Support Groups

Social media is responsible for connecting people who share commonalities together. There are support groups for cancer, epilepsy, addiction and countless others. Using these groups to find others who are facing similar challenges and engaging in conversations with them lets you know that you’re not alone and it can inspire you to forge ahead.

4. Fitness and Exercise

What better way to take control of your health than through exercise. Sites like Gimme20 and Traineo offer fitness communities that make exercise fun. Set-up group challenges or find local members and create your own running club, there are many possibilities and benefits to social media fitness sites.

When you’re searching for something on the internet you’ll notice that a vast majority of the time the first or second entry on Google’s search engine results page will be a Wikipedia link. To date, Wikipedia boasts an impressive 16 million articles, of which 3.3 million are in English. Currently, it is one of the largest and most popular reference sites available on the net. A large network of Wiki editors review all articles that are submitted and use a group approval system to determine if content will be published, or in some cases, banned.

Because Wikipedia is a wiki, anyone with access to a computer and a Wikipedia account can make edits to posted entries. It’s important to remember that jus because you post an article, you don’t own it and updates and changes can be made by others at large.

Although writing a Wikipedia article seems like an utterly simple task you’ll need to know a few basics in order to prevent your content from being deleted. Before you begin make sure that you’re writing from a neutral point of view (NPOV). The best way to approach a NPOV is to make your entry mirror what it would look like if you were to read it in a traditional encyclopedia. The content that you submit should be unbiased, verifiable, noteworthy and not breach copyright.

Wikipedia is a social community and it takes the content that users submit very seriously. If you’re not able to draft an article that follows Wiki’s protocols it will more than likely be deleted. The other thing to keep in mind is that not every brand, service or product can produce an entry that acceptable by Wiki standards for the simple reason that vanity, promotion and opinion are not looked upon favorably.

Before You Begin

If you’re still feeling optimistic enough to craft a Wiki article you’ll want to do the following first:

• Search Wikipedia to confirm that an article doesn’t already exist.
• Use alternate search terms just in case your article is labeled under a different heading.
• Determine if your article is verifiable and noteworthy before you begin writing it.
• Create a user account if you don’t presently have one.
• Aim for an article that is a minimum of 1500 characters, but no more than 4,000 words.
• Practice entering your article with the Wikipedia Sandbox first.

Actual Writing

Building your first Wiki article does take a bit of planning. You’ll want to structure your article so that it reads in chronological order. Next, make sure to gather your references and credible sources that you can cite to support what you’re saying. As you write, reference other Wiki articles by including links to them. This helps to substantiate your article and it cross-promotes other reference material on Wikipedia.

When you’re ready to submit your article to Wikipedia, you might be surprised to discover that you’ll need to use Wiki-style codes to achieve specific text attributes like boldface, italics and bullet points. Check out the cheat sheet so that you have an understanding of what needs to be input to achieve your desired result on the user end.

Even though Wikipedia sounds like a marketing dream come true you’ll learn that it doesn’t quite work the same way that a brochure or brand website does. Wiki entries are not promotional landing pages for businesses or individuals. Entries are informational and neutral and quite the opposite of a marketing tool. Once you make that connection you’ll be able to assemble a solid piece that meets the criteria set forth by Wikipedia.

Word To The Wise

If you submit a Wiki entry and it gets deleted and then you make edits to the same entry and continue to resubmit in an effort to get it published, you run the risk of being permanently banned and blacklisted from Wikipedia. Instead of repeating the same mistakes read over the guidelines and look at current entries to get a better sense and understanding of what an entry should sound, read and look like.

So you’ve uploaded a snappy profile picture, crafted a swanky bio and officially launched your social presence on Twitter, Facebook and the works. You start to get a few fans and followers, but now what? You keep hearing that it’s important to engage in conversations, but where do you begin? Perhaps you’ve made a few attempts to connect, but without much success. Have no fear – with the small exception of spiders, absolutely hate them – here are a few quick and easy tips to move you toward a dialogue with your peeps.

1. Listen To What’s Being Said

Remember that if people are liking or following you it’s because you’re doing something right or creating something that they feel they can connect with. Do a little bit of reconnaissance work and check out what your audience is saying with your competitors. Look at the topics they’re discussing and pay attention to the language and words that they’re using. This can give you some good insight into what they want to discuss, as well as the tone and style that they’re more likely to respond to. Try to emulate a similar approach in your own interactions to get the ball moving and then tailor it to your own brand.

2. Be Open Minded

Depending on what your brand, product or service is all about some of your fans may share some extreme perspectives or questionable notions regarding it. Before you shy away or shut down the opportunity for a conversation, make an attempt to learn more from them. Great ideas can be found in unlikely places and some folks might have a tough time conveying their purpose in 140 characters or less. As challenging as it might seem try to be receptive and make an honest effort to interact with them.

3. Keep It Real

Be sincere and genuine when you take part in an online conversation. When someone has a gripe or a problem with your brand then it’s up to you to address it. Put your excuses in a box, lock them up and throw away the key. Instead, opt for an honest to goodness exchange that reflects your personality in a friendly way. Just remember that with online conversations you can’t see one another or hear one another and sometimes intention can get lost in translation. Consider what you want to say before you say it and think about how it will be interpreted on the receiving end too.

4. Show Some Gratitude

It’s unfortunate that negatives seem to garner more attention than positives in our society. So, when people tell you that they love your latest blog post or when they share an experience that your recent article reminded them about, use it as an opportunity to thank them. If you receive a thumbs up or get a pat on the back don’t hesitate to show your appreciation. Reciprocation is a super conversation starter.

5. Stay Positive

No one likes a Debbie-downer. People are more likely and more willing to connect with someone who is optimistic. All of us experience bad days and we’ve all had an occasional rough patch, but letting those low-points trickle into your conversation is a big no-no. Put on a smile, swallow your happy pill and give your online conversations a positive angle. In case you need reminding, don’t forget what happened between Nestle and Greenpeace when negativity consumed the online dialogue via Facebook.

When you break it down, having a conversation through social media, commenting or other online outlet, isn’t really that much different from engaging in a face-to-face chit-chat. Politeness, empathy and lightheartedness will not only help you begin a conversation, but they’ll also help you sustain them moving forward.

After you’ve had your website up and running for a bit, or once you’ve been blogging for awhile you’ll want to start thinking about your online ‘community’. Your community is an important, if not integral, component to the success of your online presence. By building a solid brand, creating great content and interacting with your audience, you’re working toward developing a passionate online following that will promote and support you with others.

Build It

Make your blog/site an original, meaning, try to take a fresh approach to the subject that you plan on covering. A great example of an outstanding and custom brand blog is Southwest’s Nuts About Southwest. Instead of spewing a mouthful of corporate hum-drum Southwest has assembled a blended blog that reflects the diversity of its audience and they’ve peppered it with fun and interactive content.

Another super example is the Sharpie blog. Beyond simple blog posts, the Sharpie blog has incorporated a bevy of images and videos that showcase their products in action with everyday folks and artists. The result is a visually entertaining blog that is both inspiring and entertaining.

Take a cue from Southwest and Sharpie and find a unique way to position your blog/site  that’s right for the audience that you want to capture.

Promote It

Make it easy to pass along and share what you’re creating. This means including social share buttons to increase viral opportunities. At a bare minimum, you should feature  Tweetmeme and Facebook Share buttons that can be used to attract others to become a part of your online community. People want to be able to send links and information in quick and simple ways. Integrating social share buttons is a near guarantee that they’ll be able to do so.

Ask For It

You have to ask people to visit, comment and share. It’s a very simple way to remind and ensure your audience that you want them to invite others to take a peek and converse about what you’ve created. Communities aren’t built overnight, but asking others who appreciate your perspective, style and message to find and include others is an ideal way increase growth. Like-minds attract like-minds and you’ll discover that asking people to spread the word about your community is as easy to say as it is to do.

Get Involved With It

An online community can’t grow on its own. You need to take an active role in fostering relationships with your members. Encourage contributions through commenting and be prepared to seek out potentially interested people to invite to the community. This doesn’t mean that you need to launch a spam campaign or make a commitment to stalk anyone into joining. Be yourself, be authentic and tell people that you’d love for them become a part of what you’re putting together.

Repeat It

Whether your online community has 50 followers or 15,000, you need to continually work at adding new members. A stagnant community is also a flailing community. By continually adding new members you’re increasing the chances that better dialogues will form, more interesting questions will be asked and novel ideas will be exchanged. These actions in themselves make your community more attractive to others, which will increase your subscriber base. The goal isn’t to have a blog or site with the largest quantity of followers. It should be to have the best quality of content and relationships with the people who are supporting what you’re creating.

There are many other tips that can be used to build a strong online community. What are some that you’ve used to enhance your own blog or site? Fill us in.

First the Facebook story hits Hollywood and now it appears that the Twitter story has made it’s way to the silver screen. Fortunately, it hasn’t taken long for an excellent parody to hit YouTube. Enjoy a good giggle.

One of the nice things about social media is that because so many people and brands are using it, the rest of us can glean successful tips and surefire tactics from the masses to make our own experiences and implementation strategies that much better. This list of best practices isn’t comprehensive, but it does build a launch point of basics that are easy to follow and simple to use.

1. Crowdsourcing

Use your social media presence to reach out to customers, users and clients to ask them what they like most or least about your brand, product or service. It’s an excellent way to learn how to improve a feature or scale back a push. Let’s face it, perception is reality and knowing what your audience wants is just about as close to the truth as you can get.

2. Overcome Your Fears

For most brands and businesses, one of the most frightening aspects of social media is that they have to give up control. This means that by making themselves available through social media they’re subject to kind comments and scathing criticism. There’s no denying the fact that your brand is at the mercy of your audience. Set your sensitivity aside, check your ego at the door and make an attempt to understand and learn from any negative feedback that you might encounter.

3. Give Prompt Responses

One thing we know for certain is that social media moves very quickly. Being able to send out a thank you, reply to a question or provide details in a blog comment all need to be attended to as they happen. Make a concerted effort to converse with your fans and followers as soon as possible. If you’re finding that your time is limited, consider delegating and expanding social media responsibility in a team format. A social media team is great for keeping the social media momentum going and it’s helpful in getting a fresh perspective to a new situation.

4. Be True To You

It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement of social media success. But as thrilling as it might be to build a following of thousands, don’t lose sight of what your brand stands for or what your business is about. Authentic relationships are built on a foundation of genuineness. Keep it real when it comes to interacting with your audience and don’t lose sight of why you began your social media campaign to begin with. People are perceptive and they can smell insincerity from a mile away.

5. Keep A Consistent Identity

Format your brand name and stick with it. Take the name MindSprout for example. It’s used across all of our social media sites as MindSprout so that it’s easily identified and found. I haven’t used variations like msprout on some sites or mindspt55 on others, which can potentially cause confusion and even dilute the brand. Use a service like Knowem.com to stake your brand name claim on all the social media sites that you’ll have a presence on. Additionally, use the same avatar, logo or imagery to create brand cohesiveness across your social platforms.

6. Track Metrics

This is by far one of the most important best practices to follow. Keep track of your social media efforts and measure how successful each one has been. If you’re not seeing the results that you want it’s time to rethink your strategy. A new approach is much better than continuing down a path to nowhere. Use your analytics, link shorteners and sentiment trackers to monitor and learn about what’s working and what’s not.

There are plenty of other best practices that can be used, but hopefully this will give you a good starting point. Just remember to be patient, don’t lose focus and choose your social media channels carefully.

What are some of your personal best practices that you would add to this list? Share with us.

If you have any doubts about whether or not social media is simply just a flash in the pan or the future of internet marketing then continue reading. Now, if you’ve already made your mind up about social media don’t abandon ship. You might discover that there’s more than meets the eye.

Meets Human Needs

People crave interaction and connection with other people. This is a main reason why social media has become so popular over the last decade. Via social media, brands can create opportunities to share and recognize loyal followers with special rewards and incentives. These actions make customers feel special and it shows them that they’re appreciated by the brand.

So how does this translate into showing that social media is effective? Well, unique recognition and preferred treatment was observed by Hitwise in 2009 during Black Friday holiday shopping festivities. This study revealed that 4.3% of Facebook users and 2.3% of Twitter users made an online visit to a major retailer after they visited their social media site.

Cost-Effective Marketing

Social media isn’t free, but it is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising methods, which doesn’t include feedback from people regarding their personal experiences. Maybe this is why print media has been suffering over the past few years. Newspaper revenue has fallen 26% during the past year bringing the totoal loss since 2006 to 41%. Then there’s the magazine industry which saw 367 U.S. periodicals close up shop and cease all printing. Not nearly as bad as the more than 500 publications that called it day in 2008.

The mistrust of traditional advertising has turned consumers into skeptics. Fortunately, the Internet makes it easy to read-up and review just about anything and everything before making a commitment to purchase, subscribe or otherwise. Online advertising is certainly more affordable and it allows for more targeted reach. Couple that with a brand’s social media  presence and people can research what others are saying about a brand very quickly, plus they can ask them directly for additional information.

Builds Brand Loyalty

Based on 2009 data reported from comScore and GroupM search, social media plays an important role in paid and organic search. Click Through Rates (CTR) increased by 50% when consumers are exposed to a brand’s social media profile. Additionally, when a consumer has been presented with a brand’s social media campaign the study discovered that they’re 2.4 times more likely to click on organic links to the brand’s site.

Using this research you can see how social media directly contributes to building brand recognition and loyalty. Knowing that social media can have a positive effect on the bottom line is one more reason for businesses to integrate a social media campaign into their marketing efforts.

It’s Live

The thing about social media is that it’s happening in real time. If you have a customer service complaint or a problem with a product you can jump on any brand’s social media site and request some help. This makes it easy for businesses to deliver prompt customer care and immediately address the needs of its audience.

On the other hand, if someone chooses to broadcast their negative experience with a particular product or company it can become a nightmare, or an overnight viral video like Comcast couch guy. In 2006, a blogger needed to replace a modem at his residence. He got in touch with Comcast who sent out a technician and who the had to phone the home office for additional assistance. After being on hold for more than an hour the tech fell asleep. The blogger captured everything on video and kindly uploaded it to YouTube where it has received more than 1,542,000 views.

Social media can be used effectively to build brand awareness, as well as by people to share brand positives and negatives. The point is that no matter how you slice it social media isn’t a passing fad. It is becoming a standard communication platform that has dramatically changed the way that brands and consumers interact with one another.