Hello everyone! This week’s round-up features links pertaining to small business and its place in the ever growing world of social media marketing. Long gone are the days of gaining a clientele exclusively through the tactile means of paper advertisements, billboards and the like. Tangibility has now been redefined to encompass the seemingly elusive nature of the online world.  The following articles help small business owners grasp social marketing’s new definition.

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.

Small Business

Got Social Strategy? A business’s social strategy is necessary but is only worthwhile if coupled with an efficient activation plan.

How to Create Social Media Business Guidelines Explains why social media guidelines are important to businesses and offers models small businesses can put into practice.

How to Network to Increase Sales Small business should network with a goal in mind, that goal often being increasing sales.  Here is a step by step guide to increase sales through the use of social platforms.

Facebook Questions: A New Opportunity for Small Business? Facebook’s new Q&A product could be an effective way for small businesses to engage with new and current customers.

Photo credit: br3akthru / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This week we discuss our most least favorite thing to hear about social media: “I don’t care what you ate for lunch.” Which takes multiple forms, such as “I don’t care where you’re eating lunch.” So Kendra and I discuss signal versus noise in the social media sphere, including why you should care, and for lack of better way of saying it, how you can care efficiently. We discuss the various ways you can use filters in Facebook, Twitter, location-based applications like Foursquare, and feed readers. And what’s making us happy this week? Believe it or not, reading materials.

[Links we mentioned]

• Facebook: What are friends lists and how do I create them?
• Twitter: How to use Twitter lists
• Foursquare: How do I get pings or notifications when my friends check in? (Or not.)
• RSS/feed readers: How to find feeds
• Seth Godin’s “Ship It” pamphlet
• “Open Government” by O’Reilly Media

Twitter:

• @nanpalmero
• @luissandovaljr

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A couple of months ago, we announced what we hoped would be a solution to the problem that many businesses face – needing help with the day-to-day tasks of maintaining a consistent, quality online presence. We began our training and certification program for social media interns this fall. These social media interns are available to our clients to help with the day-to-day tasks of managing their online presence, such as formatting blog posts, editing videos, and administering Facebook and Twitter accounts. Many of them work in the offices of our clients, where they can soak up the company’s culture, values and business.

We’re pleased to introduce our first crop of social media interns, newly trained and already working with clients.

Ericka Clay

Ericka graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2007, with a bachelor’s degree in English/Creative Writing. She moved to Corpus Christi in 2008 with her husband and their family business. She is a novelist, blogger and mother to a one-year-old daughter. She joins the Neovia Solutions team as our internal intern, in the hopes of learning the social media marketing ropes in order to one day open her own agency working with authors on their online presence.

Jaclyn Nix

Jaclyn will graduate from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi this May with a degree in Communications with an emphasis in Media. She interned this past summer at the Art Museum of South Texas, working with their website and Facebook fan page to create an up-to-date online presence. She is also responsible for a public service announcement, “Buckling Up,” which was selected by the Texas Department of Transportation as the winner of a contest. It appears regularly on television. She joins the Neovia Solutions team as client company 3eWerks social media intern.

Tyler Moody

Tyler will graduate from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Before coming to us, he worked as an intern at Snap Fitness, where he helped establish and maintain the gym’s social media presence. Tyler hopes to enter the marketplace as a marketing professional, and to obtain his MBA in Marketing. His passion and drive made him the perfect addition to our social media team working for the Loyd Neal re-election campaign.

Adriana Oliva

Adriana will graduate from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi this May with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Originally from Laredo, Adriana came to Corpus Christi to go to college. She is the president of the Sophia Del Carmen Fan Club, in which she handles promotion, website maintenance, graphics and social media presence for the Latina artist. She joins the Neovia Solutions team as a general intern, who will work with various clients as needed.

Martha Castro

Martha will graduate from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi this May with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Like Adriana, she is originally from Laredo and came to Corpus Christi for college. She is co-president along with Adriana of the Sophia Del Carmen Fan Club, and also works with children’s book author Ben Joy as his marketing assistant, helping with his online and social media presence and promotions. Martha joins the Neovia Solutions team as a general intern, working with a variety of clients as needed.

________________________
Holly R. Hoffman

Cofounder & Chief Inspiration Officer, Neovia Solutions
321.277.6573
holly@neoviasolutions.com
www.neoviasolutions.com

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Neovia blog Meet the Fall 2010 Neovia Interns

— @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

On this week’s podcast, we discuss an article from AllFacebook.com called “What’s the Best Approach to Creating a Facebook Page for Yourself?” The post centers around the author trying to create a little distance from people he doesn’t know adding him as a friend on Facebook by creating a fan page for himself. The problem is that people don’t want to be fans, they want to be friends. We discuss how this effects our use of Facebook, how personal we can be, the problems that arise from being “FB friends” with people you don’t really know, and what the solution is. We also talk about what’s making us happy this week: Rapportive (for Kendra) and the community that’s arisen around Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (for Holly).

[Links we mentioned]

• AllFacebook.com
• “What’s the Best Approach to Creating a Facebook Page for Yourself?”
• Neovia Solutions Fan Page
• Rapportive

Twitter:

• @rapportive
• #PSL

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HootSuite is a wonderful application that allows you to update and manage multiple social media accounts all in one place. It does a lot of neat tricks, but our favorite has to be allowing us to schedule updates to our Facebook fan page. Once you’ve linked your Facebook account and fan pages, you’re ready to try this. Watch our simple how-to video below to see how you can save time by scheduling all of your updates to Facebook in one sitting. Another plus: You get the consistency of a regularly updated fan page without worrying about remembering to post every day.

This week we answer a request sent in from Twitter user @texastoms about bulk email programs, which reminded us of a great article that MailChimp shared earlier this week, called “I’m Not a Spammer, I Just Need to Blast These Potential Customers.” We loved it so much we might just frame it. Serendipity, considering this has been a hot, hot subject around our offices, as we’ve received several emails lately that we haven’t signed up for. We discuss our “Just because it’s free and you can, doesn’t mean you should” philosophy, and why email addresses have become such a prized possession among would-be marketers.

We also discuss what’s making us happy this week, including Kendra’s marketing “boot camp” and my obsession over our newly acquired (not-so-legally) office chair.

[Links we mentioned]

- “I’m Not a Spammer, I Just Need to Blast These Potential Customers.”
- Twitter:

@MailChimp

@TexasToms

@jonathanmead

- And the coolest office chair in the world.

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Here’s the irony. The best way to remember everything is to purposefully remember very little, instead using a system that remembers for you. Your key responsibility is simply to remember to use the system. Sounds like a much better alternative, right?

We sure think so. Enter: Evernote – the Superhuman-Maker.

Ready to be more like Jill, the awesomeness machine, instead of Jack, the note monster?

Then, join the other 4 million users, and get started using Evernote today.

1. Create your free account.

2. Visit their download page from your main computer, and download the appropriate version. (They’ll automatically recommend the correct version.)

3. From your phone or iPad, visit the store to search for the free Evernote app. Download it, and enter your account information.

4. Start making notes from any of your devices. Take pictures. Drag documents into a note. Start typing. No matter where you are, all your data will be right with you.

To learn more, visit Evernote’s tutorials page or take advantage of these great affiliate resources.

- For the DIY’ers, you’ll love Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials eBook. This PDF Guide features comprehensive setup instructions and a sizable collection of tips, tricks and best practices to help the Evernote newbie get up to speed quickly and show the seasoned Evernote veteran a thing or two about how to become an Evernote ninja. (We’ve been through it a time or two ourselves – and it’s fabulous.)

- For more personalized instruction, the Evernote Expert course offered by Imagine More University is ideal. With short daily lessons, you’ll transform into an organizational guru in just four weeks. You’ll have plenty of Q&A time with the instructor, and you’ll even get a copy of the Evernote Essentials eBook. (As a bonus, we’ve even arranged a special discount for Neovia Solutions readers. Just use the discount code NEOVIA at checkout to get 10% off your course registration. Just be sure to sign up before it expires on September 30.)

Posting links to your website or blog on Facebook is a great way to drive traffic, but you may not be getting the most out of your Facebook links. There are a lot of little things you probably don’t know that you can change about the way you’re posting. Hopefully, this quick little how-to video will help.

Welcome to our inaugural podcast! This week we discuss the controversy surrounding Ole Miss would-be quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and the retweeting faux pas of NCAA Director of New Media Strategies Ronnie Ramos. Earlier this week, @ronnieramos retweeted some not only negative tweets about Masoli (some of which called Masoli’s move “mercenary”), but more interestingly to us, a tweet in which Ramos said retweets were not necessarily an agreement of the original posts. We explain why we took issue with this. We also discuss personal vs. private account etiquette, as well as how important it is to understand the social platform you’re using, especially when representing an organization.

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