Manage your desktop social media from one place

This week I thought I would share some useful tools that make life that little bit easier.

Seesmic - make social media management easy!

Seesmic is a really useful desktop tool that allows you to view and manage all your social media feeds from one place -you can group people and topics along with running several accounts from each application.  For example I have my personal Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds coming through alongside Elite Edge’s accounts and whichever client accounts we manage and watch.  Very useful and saves lots of time.

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Surveys made easy

Surveys made easy with Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey is a great tool to gather information from your customers, prospects, colleagues or partners.  It’s easy to set up and with the advanced plans you can customise elements too.

We use it a lot for gathering opinions, asking questions, testing various material etc.  You can design your surveys, gather and analyse data and use the online tutorials to discover all the features you can tap into.

The Basic Plan is free and you get the following:

  • Features include:
  • 10 questions per survey
    100 responses per survey
  • Easy-to-use web-based survey tool
  • Collect data via weblink, email, Facebook, or embed on your site or blog
  • Real-time results
  • 24×7 email customer support

With the basic plan you cannot print your surveys or responses which is a limitation if you want to circulate and discuss findings.

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Get your chosen image to follow you anywhere on the web

Whether its a logo or a photo if you comment on blogs, websites or are involved in social media where your image is displayed against your profile, sign up to Gravator.

Take your image anywhere on the web

It’s a free service and you can associate an image of your choice with a particular email address.  This is a great way of making sure that you have the most appropriate image representing you at any time.

Gravator means “globally recognised avator” and it saves you the hassle of changing your image on a dozen sites – manage your image admin centrally.

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10 (actually 13) ways to used LinkedIn

Here is a great summary of how to use LinkedIn – the article was orginally written by Guy Kawasaki and it has been updated by Jason Alba for 2011 – there are 13 points in Jason’s article!

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Friday 13th

I’ve spoken before about using key dates and events to get in front of your prospects and when a Friday 13th comes around the media is full of superstitious articles, comments and predictions of why things happen on this day.

The road to superstition

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Keep things running smoothly over these shorter work weeks

As we begin a run of three and four day work-weeks in the UK due to bank holidays, how will you ensure that your team stays focused and activities continue despite the disruptions and excitement that shorter work weeks bring?

How do you make sure that your staff don’t “go down a notch” in terms of their productivity? One fun and proven way to maintain momentum is to get everyone (yourself included) to make a daily commitment grid (see example).  Have a minimum of five activities on there so that you can tick across the grid as you complete  your actions every day.

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As postage costs rise today, should you continue to send letters?

Today sees UK first class postage prices increase to a whopping 46p for a standard first class letter.  As email marketing becomes increasingly popular, many businesses no longer send direct mail through the post.

So why should you continue to write letters from a marketing perspective?

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If people want to unsubscribe, let them…

This is a bit of a ranting post but it does carry a valid message.  Respect people’s privacy and don’t assume that because you’re sending something they want to receive it!

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International Women’s Day – 8 March 2011

Today sees inspirational and enterprising women around the globe celebrating the centenary of International Women’s Day

Is there an opportunity for you to take advantage of either for this occasion or other forthcoming dates?  It will involve forward planning of course but is an area that can be very worthwhile.  Maybe offer to speak at an event or take part in a radio show where you can also promote your own business to a captive audience whilst talking about the reason you are there (the date and what it represents).

Make a list of dates that you could utilise over the next twelve months and start planning now what your objectives are, what you will have to do to get the ball rolling and most importantly, make an action plan that you can begin to implment.

Don’t wait to hear or see one of your competitors and know that you could have done it better!

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Gregg’s to rename its Cornish Pasty

Sometimes decisions outside of our control can impact significantly on our own products and services.  This is a good example of a national company being forced to change the name of one of its most popular pasties.   There are also cost implications for marketing materials and time to update all occurences of the original name.

The Pasty Formerly Known as Cornish

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