Become a social media powerhouse in one week (phase 4)

Phase 4 of 5
In this installment, we’ll be setting up the rest of your online social media presence. After you managed these sites for a while and your confidence grows, you’ll want to go through and add more customization to each. And if you want to get really sophisticated, you can design each in such a way as to use a similar color scheme, profile language and image of you so that they have a consistent theme throughout. You’ll also want to include links to the each of the other sites from every site so people can interact with you in different ways, or at least the way of their choosing. In a future blog post, we’ll get you set up with your YouTube account. Happy socializing!

4. Setting up Facebook and LinkedIn
4.1. Go to www.facebook.com
4.2. Complete the mini form right on the home page and then “Sign Up”
4.3. Give yourself at least two hours for the next step.
4.4. There are no specific instructions here, complete as much information about yourself as you can, then have fun uploading photos of yourself, searching for friends, and interacting with whatever you find here. Facebook has a very friendly user interface, so you can confidently interact and know what’s going on at all times.
4.6. Click the Applications tab in the bottom left corner
4.7. Click "Browse more Applications" at the bottom of the list
4.8. Search for the "Twitter" application and add it
4.9. Add in your Twitter login and password, and hit "Submit"
4.10. Now when you go to Twitter and update your status, it will update your status on Facebook as well.
4.11. When you’ve had enough of Facebook, go to www.linkedin.com
4.12. Complete the form on the right side of the page and click “Join Now”
4.13. Once in, you can spend about an hour building and tweaking your profile here. You’ll want a nice head shot of yourself, you can build your profile out very similar to your resume.
4.14. After you feel you have completed everything here, search for some coworkers by company name or people you know.
4.15. From your home page, click the “Applications” link
4.16. You can search for and add any number of widgets to your page, and the first ones I recommend are the Twitter application that will feed your tweets to your profile page and the BlogLink application that will do the same for your blog posts.

New media requires new metrics

So you've got a Facebook page, a blog, a Twitter profile and you've posted some great videos on YouTube. Now what?

Okay, so far so good. Any direct marketer will tell you, however, that it's all bogus until you can measure its success against your own quantifiable goals. With today's social media applications, that's tricky. It's not as simple as response and conversion rates, and forget about seeing a clean ROI. But don't let that stop you!

New media requires new metrics for success. For example, your Facebook page might live by such metrics as new fans per month, or posts per day. Your blog might contain measurements on number of new followers per month or number of comments per post. Twitter can tell you the number of new followers per month if you keep a record of it as you go.

These aren't hard metrics on which you should run a small business, and definitely not by which you'd want to run a large business, but rather are directional in letting you know you're creating an impact. If you properly integrate your social media efforts and use tracking code, such as that provided by Google Analytics, you'll be able to see how each piece works together to create an experience for your customers and prospects.

Take a good look at what is important to you in reaching your goals and go from there.

Why do we love social media so much?

I should be in bed now.

My wife has probably given up waiting for me and is fast asleep. I'd join her, but I just need to tweak my Twitter design and check Facebook one last time, in case I missed something vital in the last 20 minutes.

Some people seem surprised by the social media phenomenon, but it's really no mystery at all. People were built to be in relationships with each other, they just can't help it. And social media makes it ridiculously easy to dig up old high school buddies, feel connected to celebrities and people of power, and scratch that itch for a connection with another human being.

If you ask me, social media is here to stay. This digital version of friendship and communication is only going to get more prevalent and more ingrained into people's everyday lives. In fact, for millions of people around the globe, that day has already come.