by Selene Bowlby

Selene M. Bowlby, owner of iDesign Studios, is a web designer and front-end web developer with over ten years of professional experience in the design industry. Follow her on Twitter.

There’s no escaping social media — whether it’s for the promotion of your product, service or blog, or even just for fun, it is impossible to deny the staying power of this fairly new medium. Because WordPress is such a popular blogging platform and content management system, and has such a healthy developer ecosystem, it should come as no surprise that there are countless plugins available to help integrate your social networking efforts with your WordPress () driven site.

While it’s important promote your blog posts with social bookmarking, it is equally important to promote and link to your actual profiles, as well. The following WordPress plugins are just a few of the options available to help you accomplish this. If we haven’t covered your favorite WordPress social media plugins, please leave links to them in the comments.

Your Social Profiles

The most basic way to promote your social media profiles is through the use of simple text or image links pointing to your most frequently used social networks. Of course, you can do this manually with some basic HTML, but there are many plugins that will help automate the process for you, and more easily keep things up-to-date if you add, remove, or change profile information.

1. DandyID Services – With approximately 330 social networks supported, the DandyID Services plugin is one of the most extensive available. If you’re a social butterfly, you can bet that you’ll find just about any social network imaginable available through the plugin. You’ll first need to create a free account with DandyID, then configure the sidebar widget which gives you several options, such as whether to display favicons only, text links only, or a combination of both.

2. Social Media Page – Rather than just including all your social media links in the sidebar by default, the Social Media Page plugin, which supports approximately 140 social networks, allows you to include your social profiles on any page or post with a simple line of code. This is ideal if you want to link out to your profiles, without cluttering up your sidebar with lots of icons.

3. Social Profilr – With only 14 social networks to choose from, the Social Profilr plugin is far from all inclusive, however it has a nice twist. Most of these plugins only allow for the actual profile links. Social Profilr steps it up a notch by also letting you include a line of text (with or without HTML) as a brief introduction. In essence, you can turn this into a brief “About Me” or “About the Blog ()” blurb with a link to your full WordPress “About” page. This appears above your social profile icons, which can be displayed in either vertical, horizontal or dropdown format.

Your Lifestream

Lifestreaming takes the basic social media profile links a step further by displaying your social activity right on your web site. The plugins below all have about the same total number of available social networks to choose from – approximately 60, give or take a few – so your best bet would be to look at the specific services offered to be sure your favorites are included.

4. FriendFeed Activity Widget – FriendFeed () is perhaps the most popular lifestreaming service around today, which makes their plugin a convenient one to use! All you need is a FriendFeed account in order to use this sidebar widget, which is set up by simply entering in your login information and selecting the number of events to display. What’s particularly nice about this plugin is that you are given the option to hide Twitter () @replies, which can be confusing when seen out of context. This plugin also offers the most minimalistic design, which is a benefit, considering the amount of information being streamed onto your sidebar.

5. Lifestream – More independent than the other options listed here, the Lifestream plugin doesn’t require a third party account in order to stream your social activity. Although out of the box, this plugin doesn’t have the best design (it’s more cluttered than the other two), its biggest benefit is that it gives you the option of being utilized as either a sidebar widget, or on a separate page/post of its own. Like the FriendFeed widget, it gives you the option of hiding Twitter @replies from your stream, too.

6. Lifestream.fm – Of the plugins listed here, Lifestream.fm currently offers the largest number of social networking services that you can stream onto your site. It does require an account with Lifestream.fm, but once you’ve signed up, setting up the sidebar widget is a simple task. The design is nicer than that of the Lifestream plugin, but the downside to this one is that it displays all of your Tweets, including @replies.

Your Commenters

And let’s not forget your blog commenters. While you obviously want to promote your own social profiles, you can share the love by helping your commenters promote their profiles, as well. Of course, you’ll also receive the benefits when you respond to comments on your blog, too.

7. Retaggr () – With more than 180 social networks to choose from, Retaggr is another great option for promoting your social profiles. This particular plugin is somewhat limiting, in that commenters need to have a Retaggr account in order for them to receive the extra link love from your site. But if they do, the plugin places a tiny icon next to their comment. Rolling your mouse over the icon pops up their profile information including their name and social media links.

8. Social Profiles – The Social Profiles plugin is ideal for sites with registered users and/or multi-authored blogs. It serves as an incentive for people to register or write for your blog, by promoting their social profiles along with their comments. This plugin adds fields for users to enter their usernames for up to 10 social networks. If you happen to know your way around PHP (), you can add additional networks to the list, as well. When registered users comment on your blog, it displays links to their profiles as either text or image links, helping their comments to stand out from those of non-registered commenters.

9. WP Twitip ID – The WP Twitip ID is a Twitter specific plugin, but with the service’s popularity, this is likely the most universal plugin to include with your comment form. It doesn’t require anything from your commenters, other than an existing Twitter account. With an extra line of code in your comments template file, this plugin adds a field for users to enter their Twitter username, which is automatically linked to their Twitter URL, alongside their name and comment.

Dual Purpose

While most social networking plugins either help you promote your blog posts OR your social media profiles, the following plugin does both.

10. Tweetmeme () – Similar to the Digg () style “vote” buttons, the Tweetmeme plugin creates a button that lets readers easily retweet your blog posts. By default, it begins tweets with “RT @tweetmeme …” along with your post title and URL. However, you can update the settings to list your Twitter username, changing the tweet to “RT @YourTwitterIDHere … (via @tweetmeme)” – letting people on Twitter not only view your post, but see your Twitter ID, as well. Additional options for this plugin let you select the position and size of the button, as well as giving you the ability to display it on your RSS feed.

by Christina Warren (MASHABLE)

We talk a lot about how big brands are embracing social media as a mechanism to connect directly with customers. Still, it’s much easier to talk about integrating social media into your brand than it is to actually do it.

That’s why IKEA’s recent Facebook campaign is so awesome. The Swedish furniture company opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden and rather than spread the word the old-fashioned way, they decided to go directly to the people using Facebook.

This video describes the campaign in detail:

An account was created for the store manager at the Malmo store. Over a two-week period, showroom images were uploaded to his Facebook photo album. Using the all-popular “tagging” feature, customers were able to locate items in the pictures and put their name on it. The first person to tag an object got to take it home.

The word spread through Facebook () and users started embedding links and images in their own profiles and across news feeds. In turn, thousands and thousands of users willingly promoted IKEA and it’s new store to others, creating a big win for IKEA.

by Josh Cantone (MASHABLE)

One of the best things about Twitter is the way that it allows content and information to spread quickly across the network from person-to-person. This happened for two reasons: 1. because Twitter is a one-to-many communications platform and 2. because it allows for content to be easily repeated. In fact, the latter led to what we call the “retweet.” It’s safe to say that the founders of Twitter did not initially envision this as a use for their platform, but the retweet convention organized itself organically and was embraced by third-party apps.

Unfortunately, retweets were messy for a couple of ways. First, because of the 140 character limit placed on tweets, retweeting someone else’s content sometimes meant editing their text in order to ensure that the customary “RT” and “@username” attributions fit. Second, because there’s often overlap in who we follow, retweets many times led to redundancy in your timeline as more than one of the people you followed retweeted the same content. So a couple of days ago, Twitter () rolled out a solution in the form of a completely new retweet system.

Retweets: Old vs. New

Retweeting someone used to be a completely manual process. You had to copy and paste their tweet, add the “RT” designation, and the “@username” attribution, then click the “update” button. Some third party Twitter clients had built-in retweet buttons, which would automatically add the proper attribution and designation text. Many times you would need to edit the original retweeted text in order to make it fit within Twitter’s 140 character limit. (This was because adding the “RT” and “@username” text would often push the tweet over the limit.)

The old style of retweets also led to redundancy within your timeline. For example, I follow a number of people that also follow @mashable. Many of these people routinely retweet Mashable () stories, so whenever the @mashable account tweets a new link, my Twitter timeline is often filled with multiple identical retweets.

Twitter’s new official retweet feature fixes both of these issues. Now, instead of retweets being appended with the “RT” text designation, they have a special retweet icon. Further, they come directly from the original tweeter’s account — regardless of whether you are following that person. If one of your followers retweets User X, you’ll see that tweet in your timeline, with the icon designating it as a retweet and a message telling you which if your followers retweeted that tweet.

Further, Twitter has fixed the redundancy issue by grouping together identical retweets. You’ll only see that tweet appear in your timeline once, but the message telling you who retweeted it will let you know which two or more of your followers retweeted.

Is this good or bad? Twitter’s new retweets are undeniably cleaner and more organized than the original, manual method. Your timeline will be easier to read and less noisy as a result, and the new API means that third-party clients can build in native retweeting in a much cleaner way (some already have). Also, you no longer need to edit original tweet text, which means it is less likely you’ll anger someone by inadvertently changing the meaning of their original tweet or messing up the attribution.

However, it can also be somewhat jarring to see people you’re not following in your timeline, and the new retweets lack the ability to add commentary to retweets. In the past, when retweeting something, users would often add their own two cents before the “RT” text. Adding comments is not supported by the current implementation of retweets on Twitter (though there is a chance it will be in the future).

How To Retweet

Retweeting works a lot like replying to tweets from the web interface. If you hover your cursor over a tweet — in either your timeline or on any user’s profile page, a “Retweet” link will appear directly to the right of the “Reply” link that has always been there. To retweet the tweet, all you have to do is click on the link.

But then what happens? The tweet you just retweeted will appear in the timelines of your friends regardless of whether they follow the original tweeter. If you think twice about your retweet, you can undo it. To manage your retweets, click on the “Retweets” link in the right hand side navigation. That will bring you to a page with three tabs:

– Retweets by others – These are all the retweets by the people you follow. They’re arranged loosely by time, but the most retweeted posts tend to bubble to the top of the list. From here you can reply to or retweet any of the tweets listed

– Retweets by you – This tab shows all of the tweets that you have retweeted. From here you can reply to tweets or undo your retweet (simply hover over the tweet and click the “Undo” link that appears).

– Your tweets, retweeted – These are your original tweets that others have retweeted. From here you can delete your tweets. You can also see who retweeted you, and when.

While there is no way to turn retweets off completely, there are two ways to block retweets from from appearing your timeline on a user by user basis. If you block a user, you won’t see their retweets in your timeline, even if someone you’re following retweets that user. You can also block retweets that a user you are following makes from appearing your timeline.

To turn off retweets from a specific user, visit their profile page and click on the circular green retweet button that appears next to the “Following” message at the top of their page. Once you click on the button, it will turn grey, indicating that retweets from that user will no longer appear in your timeline. You can toggle this option on and off using this button.

What Twitter Hopes to Accomplish

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams wrote recently that he hopes the new retweet feature will solve the problems of attribution confusion, messy or broken messages, and will reduce timeline noise. Williams said that the new retweet feature should “make Twitter a more powerful system for helping people find out what’s happening now that they care about.”

If embraced by users and third-party Twitter clients, there is almost no way to imagine that wouldn’t be the case. However, the inability to add comments to retweets is an issue that Twitter may need to address, especially to appeal to the power users who often shape the use of the platform and evangelize it to others.

by Josh Peters (shuaism)

Lead generation and acquisition is one of the four main types of marketing campaigns and yes, social media can be used in it. Actually, it can be used quite effectively so long as you have all of your other ducks in a row first. Which if you need help with there are resources that can help you with that. There will be more on that in a bit. First let’s talk about what this very important type of campaign is.

A Lead generation and acquisition is any campaigns used to gather information (like email addresses, profiles, mailing addresses, etc) with the goal of getting a list of people who are likely to buy from you. This type of campaign is usually measured by ROI to determine if what you’re doing is working, because if you’re spending more money than you’re bringing in, then you have a problem. This is also going to be covered a few paragraphs down the page.

Before you start using Social Media for Lead Generation and Acquisition
If you already have some lead generation strategies and tactics in use then go over them with a fine tooth comb and make sure they are easy to go through and don’t require too many hurdles. Assess what you want people to sign up for, and what ways they can get there. If you’re going to be sending people directly to your site make sure you have some targeted landing pages setup for your various types of leads.

Make sure you have your marketing funnels in place and that you are familiar with where people go at each step so you can send people there directly. You don’t want to send someone to step 1 if they are already at step 3. This will help keep your fall out numbers as low as possible.

If needed diagram out your current processes and look at the ways you can get people to the various parts. This is how you create your plan for inserting them and gathering the leads. Spending lots of time here and effort here can keep you from wasting a lot of your time and your potential customers time later on.

Setting up Social Media for Lead Generation and Acquisition
If your company is already involved in social media then you should have your listening strategies and tactics in place so you know where your customers are and what they talk about. If not, now would be a good time to start. This will help you setup your social media lead generation.

Excluding the millions of forums, niche networks, and sites that your customers could be hanging out on there are 2 “de facto” sites that are very quickly emerging as the two you “need” to be a part of and one platform you should have. You see them on tv commercials, in ads, and part of more and more campaigns. They are Twitter an Facebook. These two have risen above and so I’m going to talk about them briefly.*

Read the full article here

By Rich Lazzara (richlazzara.com)

Most of the marketing channels that small business have used in the past are dying right before our eyes.

It’s got me thinking about why so many small businesses aren’t utilizing more Internet marketing tools today.  It can’t be cost, since most of these things cost very little in the way of monetary investment.  Perhaps it’s a perceived lack of time.  However if you knew your success depended on it I know you would make time. I guess it could be a lack of knowledge on how to use these tools or how to get started. Quite frankly there is a ton of great stuff on the Internet that answers a lot of questions you may have.

So, I’m left with two reasons that small businesses choose not to utilize these tools a) their current lead generation and cultivation system works just fine b) they don’t believe Internet marketing will work.

Current System For Attracting Leads

Let’s look at the first one. How do you attract customers today?   Here’s a list that I came up with, perhaps there are more.

• Word of Mouth (Referrals)
• Print Advertising (Newspapers, Yellow Pages, etc)
• AM/FM Radio
• Trade shows
• Direct Mail
• TV
• Outdoor Advertising
• Phone

I’m sure there are other ways that you attract customers to your small business, however this probably covers most. Now, based on trends what do you think each of these channels will look like 5 years from now in terms of consumption and engagement.

Trends For The Next Five Years. What’s Up? What’s Down?

Based on the past and current trends I see the following from above trending UP.

• Word of Mouth (Up) – I’m not sure how to measure “Word of Mouth” but I would say it is going up in terms of consumer consumption.  There is no doubt in terms of effectiveness in the consumers mind. This is one of the reasons Social Networks are so important.
• Outdoor Advertising (Up) – With the increase in cars, travel and people the consumption is bound to be up.  Now there are more strict laws continually coming forward limiting this area, however I would say overall it’s fair to say that it is up.

Now for the channels that we see trending Down in consumption and engagement.

• Print Advertising (Down) – Nearly every channel, magazines, newspapers, yellow pages, etc are all down.
• AM/FM Radio (Down) – This is an interesting one. While AM/FM radio listeners are down, digital radio, Internet radio continue to climb. I put down since we are talking about AM/FM Radio specifically.
• Trade Shows (Down) – Both attendance and participation of nearly every industries trade shows have been steadily declining.
• Direct Mail (Down) – This has been on a downward trend for some time, more in the sense of effectiveness than consumption.  We certainly haven’t seen a dip in the amount, but more in the success rates.
• Phone (Down) – Every since caller ID this channel has been on decline.

So we have an overall general look at how the consumption and engagement trends are shaping up and I think its fair to say that over the next 5 years these trends will continue.  If anything the “Down” channels may move downward with increasing speed.

The question is if a majority of these channels are down, then what are you going to do to replace them?  The answer should be Internet marketing.

Tomorrow Rich will look at what Internet Marketing can do for your small business. By the way if one of the reason you aren’t more engaged in Internet marketing is because you just don’t know how, follow my his free newsletter where he covers this topic more in depth.

photo credit

by Dan Schawbel (MASHABLE)

There are thousands of different websites that you can leverage to build your own personal brand, but only a few that will give you both the reach and credibility to make a major impact. Here at Mashable (), we’ve provided you with a detailed look at how you can build your personal brand on Facebook (), Twitter (), and LinkedIn ().  Today, we’ll focus in on the largest video sharing site on the planet, more commonly referred to as YouTube ().

With over 120 million U.S. viewers, YouTube is used by President Obama for his weekly State of the Union Address, by universities who share lectures from star academics, and by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus who use it as a lifestream. Aside from the popularity of YouTube, the site exploits the most powerful branding medium of them all, video.

The reason why video is so effective in communicating your personal brand is because your audience will already feel like they’ve met you by the time the video is over.  With video, you get a sense of who someone really is based on their voice, their face and their body motions.  Video () can support your branding efforts like no other medium on the web.

1. Brand your profile

In order to build your personal brand on YouTube, you have to decide how you want to position yourself.  If you already have a brand (such as “financial expert for baby boomers”), then carry it over onto your YouTube channel to make it consistent with your other web properties.  Channels that have multiple faces should be branded under a topic or a company.  Channels that only have one face and voice should be branded under a full name.  This is extremely important to understand because you can’t change your channel name at a later date.

Choose a channel name: Depending on your branding strategy, you could choose your full name, your company’s name or a unique “show” name for your YouTube channel.  For instance, if you want to brand yourself as an expert in your field, you might want to do it under your own name.  The URL you will receive in return for a successful registration on YouTube is youtube.com/user/yourfullname.

Profile setup: Just like with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, filling out your profile is important because it will allow people to locate you on a platform where millions of people are competing for attention.  You are able to upload an avatar or use a screenshot that they give you from your latest video.  Use the avatar/professional picture that you have everywhere else.  You also get to add a single URL, which should be the website that best represents you as a brand, such as your blog or LinkedIn profile.

Channel information: Most people don’t know that there are different types of accounts you can choose on YouTube.  If you’re an expert in your field, then I recommend selecting the “Guru” account type because you can use a custom logo and add links.  To access this page go here.

Customize your channel: Log into your account and view your channel as it currently stands.  On the top right of your screen, select “Switch to Player Mode.”  This will change your current display to the newer layout, where people can view your latest video and select any other ones that they want to watch from the sidebar.

Channel title and tags: Where it says “Edit Channel,” you should click on “settings” and then give your channel a title, such as “Mike Smith’s Internet Marketing Show.”  On the right, you’ll want to type in tags that reflect your video content, such as “marketing” and “mike smith” because that’s how people will find your material while searching.

Themes and Colors: Under “Themes and Colors,” find the colors and overall look that align with your website, blog, business card, PowerPoints, etc.  You can also upload your own background image and change fonts and colors.  There are websites that have free YouTube designs that you can use too.

Modules: Now you want to go to “Modules” and check all options because comments, recent activity, and friends are all important if you want to build a community around your YouTube brand.

Latest video: The last thing you want to do is to click on “Edit” on the top right of the screen and where it says “Featured Video,” select “Use the Most Recent.”  This way people will be viewing your latest video automatically.

Now that have presented your audience or future audience with a legitimate profile and design on YouTube, you’re ready to start developing videos that will put your brand in the spotlight, while helping you build your business.

2. Create remarkable videos

Content is king and on YouTube, the only true way to be successful is to have content that is worth spreading.  Typically, this means it has to be either really funny or extremely interesting.  Here are a few examples of remarkable content. Video isn’t for everyone and you shouldn’t fool yourself if you know you’re introverted and shy.

Video equipment: I recommend either using a web camera from Logitech () ($99) or a Flip Ultra HD ($200).  The flip is higher quality, but the webcam allows you to do video chat or live video in addition to regular videos for YouTube.

Advanced video equipment: If you’re really serious about creating a video show on YouTube, then you may want to invest in a sounds system, amplifier, lighting, and other professional tools that will make it look professional.

Produce content: The best part about taking videos of yourself is that if you don’t like the end product, you can delete it very easily.  I recommend that you shoot multiple videos at once and then cut the ones that don’t work well.  Make sure all of your videos fall under the theme of your YouTube channel and that you fill out the title, description and tags for each.  In the description of each of your videos, there should be a link back to your blog or website because the people that watch your video might have never heard of your brand before.

Once you have about five or six videos, you will want to start promoting both your channel and each video to your audience.

3. Promote your videos

When promoting your channel and your videos, you’ll want to use the network that you already have before you start to get creative.  In the past year, YouTube has streamlined the sharing process through various social networks.

Facebook Application: Using the YouTube Video Box Application on Facebook, you can add your videos automatically on your profile page or your Facebook Fan Page.  This is a great way to give each of your videos additional visibility without additional labor.

Autoshare on Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader (): Go to your YouTube account settings and click on “Sharing.”  In this menu, you can automatically syndicate your YouTube updates (such as when you upload a new video) through Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader.  Before you check all three off, please understand who your audience is on each social network.  For example, if you share your professional videos on Facebook, where only your college friends are, then it might be awkward.

Add your blog: Go back under YouTube account setting and click on “Blog Setup.”  This will allow you to link your blog (WordPress ().com/org, TypePad (), Blogger (), etc) with your account.  This feature will enable you to post your videos on your blog directly in just a few simple clicks.

Embed your videos: If you have a blog or traditional website (corporate or personal), you can embed one or more videos from YouTube on it.  YouTube embedded videos give you options, such as a border, different size arrangements and a variety of colors.

Link to your channel or videos everywhere you can: The more links you have to a video, the higher it will rank when keywords are searching in YouTube or in Google ().  Also, more links typically means more traffic to your videos, which helps build your brand.  Link to your channel and videos from your resume, from your social networking profiles (possibly as a graphic icon), from your email signature, from your presentations and everywhere else.

YouTube isn’t going anywhere.  It’s one of the most trafficked websites in the world and it’s a great place to get started with online video.  Even though many of your videos might not get 100,000 views, the important thing is that you can leverage that video content and share it on all of your branded properties.  Your YouTube channel can become a very important asset to your brand, one that provides your authentic voice and appearance like nothing else can.

Dan Schawbel is the bestselling author of Me 2.0 and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog. His latest blog, the Student Branding Blog, provides branding and career advice for high school, college and graduate students.

by Ross Kimbarovsky (MASHABLE)

Ross Kimbarovsky is the co-founder of crowdSPRING, a community of 43,000+ graphic designers that helps small businesses from around the world with graphic design needs. You can follow Ross on Twitter @rosskimbarovsky and @crowdSPRING.

Capacity – especially to plan and execute effective marketing strategies – is a big challenge for every small business. In this post, I’ll offer 10 suggestions for how small businesses can supercharge their marketing efforts by leveraging social media. For each suggestion, I will discuss a basic strategy – for those who simply want to get their toes wet, as well as an advanced strategy – for those who want to spend a bit more time and go a bit deeper in their social media marketing efforts. These tips are based on my experience leveraging social media marketing for my company, crowdSPRING.

I suggest you begin by outlining clear goals for your social media marketing efforts and figuring out how you’ll measure success. Once you’ve outlined your goals, let’s look at 10 great ways you can begin to leverage social media for your marketing efforts.

1. Facebook

Facebook () offers exceptional, low cost marketing opportunities for small business. Facebook now has over 300 million users, and while that seems like an outrageous number for small businesses to be targeting, Facebook offers a very powerful platform on which to build a presence. If you’re not already active on Facebook; you should get started right away.

Basic Strategy: If you haven’t signed up for Facebook yet, you absolutely should as soon as possible. Once you’ve signed up, you should also consider securing your company’s username. Be aware, however, that if you reserve your company name for your personal account, you won’t be able to use it for your Business Fan Page (more on those in the Advanced Strategy), so you may want to create a Page before registering your company’s name. Fan Pages have special rules regarding usernames, which you can read here.

You should do one other thing: search for your competitors and evaluate their Facebook presence. What types of Pages have they built? How many fans or “friends” do they have? Spend 15 minutes (per competitor) looking at their posts, photos and/or videos to understand how they’re using Facebook.

Advanced Strategy: You may already have a personal Facebook account, but how do you extend that presence for your business? You have several options. You can register a Business Account – which is designed for a very simple presence on Facebook. There are many limitations on such accounts (read the FAQ here), however, so you’ll most likely prefer to have a Business Fan Page. A Business Fan Page lets you create a page where customers or fans of your business can register as a “fan” — expanding the presence of your business (because your updates will also flow to their pages). You might also want to consider running hyper-local ads on Facebook.

This is a long one, but worth the time. Click HERE to read the rest of this story.

by Adam Ostrow (MASHABLE)

Last week, I shared with you the first in a series of videos sponsored by UPS in the style of their “whiteboard” TV commercials. The idea is to take social media concepts and explain them in 1-2 minutes, giving businesses an idea of how they can seize the opportunities created by the medium. In the second installment, we look at selecting the right social media tools for your business, whether it’s for improving communication internally, or finding a better way to manage your consumer facing social media presence on Twitter and Facebook.

by Susan Payton (MASHABLE)

Susan Payton is the Managing Partner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm specializing in blogger outreach, social media, and PR. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

Today it seems that no matter what industry you’re in, your competition is stronger than ever. How do you stand out and get that sale when people aren’t as loyal to brands as they used to be? How do you get their attention in an ever growing sea of noise when they’re so often swayed by price rather than quality? One answer is to become recognized as an expert in your industry, someone other people seek out for information.

The most important part to becoming known as an expert, of course, is that you know a lot about whatever it is you do. That could be construction, public relations, HR, dogs — whatever it is, in order to gain the requisite knowledge to be regarded as a thought-leader in your field likely requires years of schooling or real-world practice, or both. In addition, when your goal is to be recognized as an expert you need to always keep learning, and to constantly share that expertise. But first let’s talk about why you might want to be an expert.

Benefits of Being an Expert

Being an expert in your field makes you the go-to person for your industry. There are many people that I trust inherently on different subjects simply because they know their stuff, and they’re not trying to sell me anything. They just want to be helpful in their own space. These are people that I learn from, but also whom I would buy from because I trust their knowledge and expertise.

Being an expert helps you:

– Establish yourself as an industry leader
– Help others
– Become a trusted resource
– Get interviews and media coverage
– Gain access (via conference/speaking invites, etc.)
– Convert followers to sales

Keep Up-to-Date

Only a fool assumes he knows everything and can’t learn any more. No matter how much you know, content and ideas are changing, especially if you work in a fast-moving industry like social media. News happens, ideas shift, people try new things. It’s important for you to stay on top of the latest updates.

Though this list is by no means complete, here are some places you can turn to stay up to date on the most recent news, trends, and ideas in your industry.

Blogs & News – Blogs in your industry are a great place to find out the latest tools and news. If you’re not already reading blogs, do a web search for [your industry + blogs] (like Chiropractic Blogs, for example) to locate some blogs that cover your business niche. Find ones that you like and subscribe to them by RSS so you won’t forget to read them.

You can also use Technorati or PostRank to find blogs in your industry. PostRank can be used to weed out the best post from the blogs you follow, as well.

It’s not a bad idea to set up a Google Alert to search for news about your industry. Paying attention to news headlines is a great way to stay abreast of changes in your field.

Online Education – There’s no reason you have to enroll in college (again) to keep learning. There are a variety of online resources at which you can take free or cheap webinars or e-courses to keep the wheels churning.

If you’re looking for generic business information, the US Small Business Administration has free online courses for small business owners, for example, or if you want great advice on internet marketing, look to HubSpot. Search the web and pay attention to the blogs you read to keep abreast of opportunities for online learning.

Social Networks – Increasingly, social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and Delicious are where people are sharing news and information that matters to them. By following the already established experts in your niche, you’ll gain access to the information they possess, which will in turn increase your knowledge.

Conferences & Events – Every industry has conferences, trade shows, and other events, at which other experts in the industry gather to share their knowledge. Attending these meetings can help you in your quest to continually learn new information. You can find out about conferences by reading industry blogs, searching events sites like Upcoming.org, or finding local user groups on Meetup.

Imparting Your Wisdom

By sharing your knowledge with others, you’ll quickly become known for your expertise. This can translate into sales, job offers, gigs, or other opportunities, as you build your personal brand as an expert. Here are some ways you can share what you know.

Blogs – The easiest way to start sharing is by creating a blog. Blogs are fantastic if you’ve got a ton of information in your head and need a place to dump it. The bonus is: you can help others through that information. Blog about what you know. Share news, offer advice, give your opinion, and make yourself the go-to resource for what you do. The key to successful blogging is to consistently put out good, original, and useful content that encourages readers to engage with you and with each other.

Social Media – Social media sites are designed for experts! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a question about something, tweeted it, and gotten free advice back, later, the people who provided me with expert advice are the people I buy from when I need their services. By providing free advice on Twitter or Facebook, you will build a base of fans that both trust you and look to you for expert advice. These fans will seek you out and recommend you to others seeking advice and information — in other words, by sharing your knowledge and gaining trust, your network will grow on its own.

Among the ways you can share your expertise using social media, are creating a lens on Squidoo that is home to all the great knowledge you’ve gleaned over the years, bookmarking blog posts and articles that relate to what you do on Delicious, and sharing those links on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, or Reddit, and responding to queries on Yahoo! Answers or LinkedIn Answers.

Create Online Courses – The benefits to teaching online are many, says Mike Volpe of HubSpot. “Leveraging inbound marketing with educational content is more efficient and a lower cost per lead than outbound advertising. Our inbound marketing programs are 5-10 times more efficient lead gen and sales channels than our outbound marketing programs.”

One way to offer an online course is through recently launched, Prfessor.com, which offers software that makes it possible for anyone to host an online school where they sell (or give away for free) courses on virtually any topic.

Video – Don’t underestimate the power of video. For those who do well in front of a camera, sharing free how-to videos on sites like YouTube or Vimeo can lead to increased awareness. It also demonstrates to television producers how well you do on camera, which means online expert videos can lead to television appearances.

Speaking Up – You should already be attending industry conferences, trade shows, and user group meetings, and you should make sure to assert yourself as a knowledgeable voice in the community while at those events. Whether that means lining up formal speaking engagements — which will be easier to do the more you grow your personal brand as an expert — or just networking and sharing your expertise with other attendees, speaking up is helpful in building your expert brand.

Consulting – Offering consulting services can do two things: first, it can make you a little money, and second, it can help you establish yourself among industry insiders as someone who knows their stuff. One consulting gig can lead to many based on referrals and having a list of business owners willing to give you a recommendation can be invaluable. If you plan to offer consulting services, put information about your services on your blog and in your social profiles, and consider offering phone consultations through Ether.com.

Build On Your Expertise

It takes a while, but you will see a snowball effect as you build your brand as an expert. More people will come to you for advice or consulting, and more media types will reach out to you for interviews. Learn to leverage your knowledge and convert it to sales. Speaking at conferences, teaching courses or seminars — both online and off, and consulting for businesses will help you grow your personal brand.