Tools and Tips for Monitoring Conversations about your Organization on the Web…

There are lots of ways to keep track of the conversations taking place on the web regarding your group or organization. Here’s a short list of social media marketing tools to help you keep track of what is being said about you on the internet.

1. If you don’t have a personal profile on Facebook, create one. Then create a business page on Facebook. Invite your friends, stakeholders, members and customers to become fans. It will help you keep track of your “friends” as well as start, facilitate and track conversations surrounding your org. Depending on your goals, you can also create a Facebook Group page and/or Cause page.

2. Want to follow conversations on Facebook? Signup for Facebook Lexicon.

3. Sign up for a Twitter business account. Start following tweets and joining in the conversations about your group or organization.

4. Once you are on Twitter, you can use Twitter Search to follow keywords across the millions of conversations and posts.
5. You can also search for any word on Twitter using Tweetscan.

6. Twilert allows you to receive email notification when something is mentioned regarding your organization.

7. GoogleAlerts is a great tool that helps you track your org and relevant conversations.

8. Sign up for an account on HowSociable. This is a great tool for tracking conversations.

9. If you come across a negative comment about your organization or group, respond with kindness and transparency. Craft your response strategically. Most of the time, you can turn the negative comment around just because you were listening.

10. If you are interested in tracking industry trends in the online space, you should check out Trendpedia.

11. Create a LinkedIn group for your organization or group. This is a great way to keep stakeholder communicating, collaborating and sharing.

12. There are many monitoring services if you have the budget. Just Google “reputation management” or “web monitoring” services.

13. If you don’t have a blog… start one. Be topical, relevant, and keep at it. Encourage comments and sharing. And, it’s ok to fall off the wagon. Just get back on (I’ve fallen off many times) and try to keep at it (at least once a week). It gets easier once you have established the habit.

14. Finally, set aside some time every day to monitor conversations about your group. It is important to stay on top of the conversation.

Social Media is here to stay. It’s very dynamic and keeps on changing. Jump in and start using a couple of the tools listed above.

Cheers!
Dave
Sharp Consulting Group, LLC

How to Promote Your Organization Using Podcasts

Podcasting is blogging with audio instead of a text entry. Essentially, you post an audio file (MP3) instead of an article.

Although long-time podcasters (3 years or more) are tired of hearing this, there is no question that a lot of people who might be interested in podcasts believe that an iPod or other MP3 player is required to listen. The fact is a lot more people listen to podcasts on their computers than on their iPods and the number of people listening continues to sky rocket (according to Arbitron and Edison Media Research).


Five Reasons Why Podcasts Are Great for Marketing your Organization
1. An increasing number of people are downloading new podcasts every day (nearly 1 in 10 people have listened to an audio podcast in the last month according to Arbitron).
2. Unlike Radio, podcasts can be played whenever the listener wants.
3. People can listen to them in their cars on their way to work or when they go for a run..
4. There is a lot less competition in the podcast market than there is in the “article” market.
5. Podcasting is a lot easier and less time-consuming than blogging and getting your articles published.

Six Steps to Planning and Producing a Podcast
1. Start by getting a good digital recorder with a good microphone (they run about $50 at Radio Shack).
2. Download an audio editing tool like Audacity or Recordforall
3. Content is King! Write a tight script (so the podcast doesn’t sound amateurish or improvised).
4. Practice (a couple times).
5. Record it in a relatively quiet environment. Try different "reads" and pick the best “take”.
6. Apply the noise-reduction filter in your audio editing software and save the MP3 file to be uploaded

Posting your Podcast
Once you have completed and edited your Podcast you are ready to submit it to Audio Sharing sites:
PodPusher
Pod Submitter
PodOMatic
Podcast Alley
iTunes
Yahoo Podcasts
Digg Podcasts
Podcast Directory
PodFeed
Odeo
Digital Podcast
Podcast.net
Singing Fish
Blog Universe
Collectik
PodNova

Have fun.
Dave