It’s the beginning of another week, and the end of the last summer month. We here in Texas are praying for the swift return of cool weather, but here are a few articles worth sharing while we wait.

And sharing is the name of this week’s game. Sharing widgets, sharing buttons, sharing testimonials, sharing information. Plus one article that isn’t quite like the others, but needed to be shared as well.

Sharing

How to Boost Site Traffic with Social Media – Social media has helped businesses of all sizes expand their audiences. Here’s how social nets can help boost the number of visitors you draw.

5 Ways to Encourage People to Share Your Content – You spend hours creating linkable blog posts, valuable resources and juicy articles all so that your customers will find something to dig into and engage with. You know that producing great content is one powerful way of increasing your own authority. But you don’t want the interaction to just stop there.

How Social Sharing is Working for SMBs – Unconvinced that “unproven” social media marketing tactics will benefit your small- or medium-sized business? Get the facts on why you can no longer afford to be anti-social.

5 Ways to Get Rockin’ Reviews – Getting reviews and testimonials on a routine basis takes a proactive and committed approach if you are going to generate them on a consistent basis and still generate them authentically. (Fake or over the top review generation campaigns can actually produce negative results.) Here are five ways you can look at systematically creating reviews.

Plus One

3 Steps to Make Your Vision Work for You – Visionaries see things that are invisible to most people; ideas far beyond the “norm” that sing with creativity and thirst to be born.  How could you ever put something like that effectively into words? Sure, it’s great to have written statements in your formal business plan for others to see, but what about having a vision statement that resonates with YOU? Follow these 3 simple steps to take your vision to the next level.

Photo credit: Calamity_Photography via Flickr.

One year ago, Kendra Kinnison and I decided to pool our collective social media knowledge and we founded Neovia Solutions, an interactive agency dedicated to social media marketing and digital business solutions. A few months later, we hosted our first conference, and just a few months later I became Neovia’s first full-time employee. Since then, we’ve hired interns, moved into offices, built websites, crafted social media strategies and policies, trained, consulted, and most importantly, worked closely with our wonderful clients in a wide range of industries: retail, higher education, medical, financial, media, insurance, convenience and energy. They have been what has made this year so wonderful. There is no greater reward than what we’ve gotten from working with our clients. We thank you all.

What’s next for us? Among other big, hairy aggressive goals, we’re starting a social media intern training program. We believe we’re the first to offer this kind of service to our clients, and this kind of training to interns. We work with a lot of small businesses, many of whom simply don’t have the manpower to carry out the day-to-day functions of social media. While we don’t believe an intern should be in charge of your social media efforts, we do believe that, if properly trained, an intern can handle the smaller tasks. Our cadre of interns will be trained in blogging, popular social networks, video, and all the technologies that accompany them. They will be made available to our clients on a contract basis, and will actually office with our clients, so they’re what they should be: a critical and integrated part of the business. We think what we’ve got is a new way for small businesses to find qualified help where they need it most.

Finally, no anniversary would be complete with a party, and we celebrated with our clients, friends and fans. Cupcakes, craft beer and sarsaparilla were on the menu. Thanks to L & F Distributors, Sierra Nevada, South Texas Provisions, and D&P Photography for their support.

Thanks to our friends, family, fans and clients for making our first year a successful one. Expect great things from us over this next year.

Pleasant weekly beginnings, readers! We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you two hot plates of social media comestibles. The first is a collection of articles talking about the new Facebook Places, launched this week, and its implications for how you’re doing business. However the second plate is full of what not to do with your social media. We all make mistakes. But how do we fix them? Read for some constructive help.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

Facebook Places

How to Use Facebook Places For Your Business. This article functions as a practical how-to for seeting up your Facebook Place and merging it with your facebook page. Simpler than Facebook’s directions.

The Advertising Opportunity in Facebook Places. Facebook is still getting people used to the idea of “checking in” before they start facilitating ads, but what can businesses expect from Facebook Places for their advertising?

3 Ways Businesses Can Take Advantage of Facebook Places. “So we know how to get on Places, what’s in store, now give me one good way I can use Facebook Places to achieve my business goals.”—PC World’s got three!

What Not To Do

Why do So Many Companies Suck at Social Media? Just because Old Spice did it, doesn’t mean it will work for you. Just one example of the root of the social media suck factor.

The One Reason Your Facebook Page Strategy Doesn’t Work Lacking fans? What’s missing from your strategy?

5 Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your E-nEwsletter. This article is a dose of tough love, but you’ll be better for it, and so will your newsletters.

Good Monday to you, everyone! We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you some stories and tips for the two most popular kids walking the social media hallways, Facebook and Twitter.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

Facebook

How To Steal Your Competitor’s Fans on Facebook. What sounds like a dirty business comes down to showing the merit of your product over another via strategies entirely acceptable in the Facebook Guidelines.

Facebook Geolocation Services Are Coming. Everyone had talked about it and now its closer than we thought. With Facebook’s ridiculously large membership, will you still be using FourSquare or TwitterPlaces? Find out.

Facebook 101 For Business: Your Complete Guide. Herein lies the most thorough introductory guide to Facebook for business that we’ve come across. If you’re just stepping in or even may have missed a few basics, they’re all in here.

Twitter

HOW TO: Get tweetable moments from your presentations. Is your presentation worth tweeting about? This article incorporates some fascinating social psychology to determine how to get listeners and talking social about your presentations.

15 Twitter Lists for C-Suite Executives. Twitter Lists are great ways to find a slew of tweets related to your position of profession of interest. From CEO lists to Techie lists, see what these lists can do for you.

Why Using Twitter for Business Makes Cents: Twitter is obviously invaluable for its reach and potential for brand exposure. But here are five more fantastic reasons why you should be tweeting right now.

Image courtesy www.editorsweblog.org

Good tidings, ladies and gentlemen! We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you Community Connections and Monitoring and Measurement. The former will talk about the invisible lines that draw us together in the world, what’s going on with them, and what do with them to drive you business forward and enhance the experience of everyone involved in your social media sphere. For the latter section, we throw you an article that explains the key differences in monitoring and measurement, then two more articles, one dedicated to monitoring strategy, the other to measuring efficacy. Plus, a video presentation for those who liked their social media movie-style. We’re pretty self-satisfied with the line-up, and we think you’ll find it helpful too. And let us know as much, leave us some love and suggestions.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

Community Connections

Connectedness and Customer Service. An experience with a lost wallet at Starbucks gets Carol Dangson thinking about customer service and social media, primarily the importance, at the end of the day, of not the social media tools, but the person behind the computer using them.

How To Manage A Sustainable Online Community. Mashable offers a visual, cyclical theory of online community behavior and suggests familiarization with it in order to avoid the “Three cardinal sins” of online community management. This one’s got some great visuals and ideas on value formation in social media.

Geolocation Grows Despite Privacy Concerns. Last week we posted an article on FourSquare and its dubious effectiveness for marketers. But this week we hear that nearly 40% of individuals using mobile services use services that are aware of where the individual is located. Learn how particular demographics are behaving with geolocation with this Webroot and Forrester study.

Monitoring and Measurement

Why You Need To Monitor and Measure Your Brand On Social Media. Our headlining article for this section. What’s the difference between monitoring and measuring your social media, and why is each important?

10 Tips for Successful Social Media Monitoring. Now that we know what monitoring is, we need to know how to do it well. Foremost the article emphasizes strategy and a plan (like us!). From there we’re offered a series of smart ideas on really evaluating what’s going on in your social media world.

How To Measure Social Media Return On Investment for the Complex Sale. We’re big on ROI here. That’s why it’s a pleasure for us to recommend this article by Nichole Kelly, who thinks that businesses can build an effective measurement strategy by taking a holistic view of lead generation. Enclosed are four tips on making sure that you’re effectively measuring social media’s effect on your bottom line.

Starbucks Video Case Study: Powering Product Launches, presented by Alexandra Wheeler. A nice, thorough presentation looking at Starbucks and powering product launches. We know–Starbucks again?! What can we say. We’re coffee people (and not the only ones, it seems–take note). Alexandra’s big idea is that social media can change behavior and drive purchase decisions. Let’s hear what she has to say.

Image courtesy www.liverpool.nsw.gov.au

Pleasant greetings from Neovia, everyone! We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you an assortment of little stories, some of which point inward toward your business use, and some of which are helpful in your outward marketing efforts. So there you have it. Social media advice–inside out of your work bubble.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

To Use Inside Your Company

4 Steps to Social Media SEO Success. Listening, Content, Socializing, and Measuring are the four keys to increasing your search engine optimization with social media, according to TopRank’s Lee Odden.

6 Ways to Generate and Nurture More Leads on Twitter. If you’re struggling to find ways to use Twitter in your B2B relations, struggle no longer. It’s easy and highly effective, but you have to read on…

Best Practices for a Killer Corporate Blog. It’s certainly not enough to just have a blog. The art of blogging and keeping your readers engaged is indeed an art, but an understandable one. IMedia Connection tells you what you need to know and do if you’re starting your corporate blog.

What It Takes To Discover Your Social Media Star. Whether you’re looking to hire out a social media expert or turn a current employee into one, here are the essential elements you’ll need to look for in a qualified candidate.

To Use Outside Your Company

Forrester: Why Most Marketers Should Forgo Foursquare. According to research, a very small percent of mobile users are using geolocation technology, but this doesn’t mean they won’t. Read on for what you need to know about geolocation, where it is, and where it’s going.

8 Criteria for Facebook Marketing Success: Facebook has more users than any other social media platform out there. While current trends in conversation with this platform concern what the ROI will be, this article focuses on how to use Facebook professionally and maturely to accomplish your marketing goals.

5 Qualities of Successful Online Video. Anyone can post videos of their cat falling off of a chair, but if you really want to have an impact with video, you’re going to need to start thinking more artfully about your video strategy. Here are some tips you’re going to want to take to heart.

Image Courtesy BigMouthMedia.Com via vannevar.blogspot.com