How can your company get the most out of LinkedIn?

• Did you know that anyone can add your company name to their profile? Make sure to check regularly that people adding your company accurately reflects your staff.
• Maintain the Products and Services –Don’t be too promotional.  Focus more on the outcomes and causes of your company.  Mention news about your business, this can include company happenings, charitable causes and any “feel good” aspects of your business.  After all, the purpose of social media is to create a humanistic approach.
• Company updates – Don’t use LinkedIn as a job board! Be creative and focus on your company’s specialties, mission, goals and objectives.  Remember that most people visiting your page aren’t solely seeking jobs.

Keep in mind that your company’s page and proper social media marketing practices is a true reflection of your business.  Attracting talent and clients with a positive approach is the first step towards creating engagement.  Understanding your target audience is an important foundation block when it comes to reaching the appropriate spectrum and maximizing your information as effectively as possible.

According to a blog from Yahoo! the new addition will allow “users explore our nearly endless stream of content, we will seamlessly include relevant and personalized Tweets alongside stories from Yahoo! and our other sources. With this greater breadth of compelling content, we’re excited to give our users even more opportunities to learn and connect. This feature now gives users an even better social media marketing experience, allowing an easy way to discover relevant and interesting people and publishers to follow on Twitter, personalized to their interests and preferences. From music to sports, news to entertainment, we’re committed to delivering our users the very best of the web, and our continued partnership with Twitter is an exciting leap forward in our endeavors.”

The search engine giant is known for their commitment to bring the very best in news and delivering content.  The social media marketing integration will begin throughout the next few days coming soon to a desktop or mobile device near you.

According to an article from Phandroid the Google Glass Explorer Edition latest XE5 features include:

• Change to sync policy: require power + wifi for background uploads
• Crash reporting
• Incoming notifications on social media network Google + such as, direct shares, comments, +mentions, including ability to comment and +1
• Incoming Hangout notifications
• Transcription of queries & messages is now wicked-fast
• Long-press to search from anywhere in the UI (no longer just from off)
• International number dialing + SMS
• Hop animation on disallowed swipes in the UI
• New On-Head Detection calibration flow
• Show device Serial Number on Device Info card
• More reliable estimation of battery charge remaining
• New recipient-list mosaic

If you’re still clueless on what Google Glass is, it is a prototype, titanium-framed wearable computer.  With a price tag of $1,500, the item has been a hot item with more than 10,000 units now being shipped to beat testers.  With the ability to carry out tasks otherwise done on a computer, this now sparks the question, could the future of social media management be easily carried out through Google Glass? Could we say goodbye to computers and desks?

Check out these common Twitter abbreviations.  Are you a fan of using abbreviations?

• B4 = Before

• BFN = Bye for now

• BGD = Background

• BH = Blockhead

• BR = Best regards

• BTW = By the way

• LOL = Laugh out loud

• MM = Music Monday

• MIRL = Meet in real life

• NBD = No big deal

• NCT = Nobody cares, though

• OOMF = One of my friends/followers

• ORLY = Oh, really?

• PLMK = Please let me know

• RTQ = Read the question

• SFW = Safe for work

• SMH = Shaking my head

• TYVW = Thank you very much

• W or W/ = With

• W/E or WE = Whatever or weekend

• WTV = Whatever

• YGTR = You got that right

• YOLO = You only live once

• YOYO = You’re on your own

• YW = You’re welcome

• ZOMG = OMG to the max

Check out thesetips from Mashable on throwing the #coolest Tweetup on the block:

1. Utilize your Twitter network as a way to drum up support, help and ideas. The number of PR and marketing people on Twitter now is astounding. Use their collective wisdom and networks to create buzz and support for your event.

2. Actually visit the venue. Seems incredibly simple right? But not everyone takes the time and effort to actually visit the bar, conference room, or park where the Tweetup will happen. I’ve never heard of anyone making a great business connection at a dark dive bar.

3. Plan for more people to show up than you think. It’s Twitter. These people do know how to spread the word better than anyone.

4. Ensure a few core people/speakers are at the event.

5. Use Email. Even though it supposedly has fallen out of favor, having the contact information for a variety of individuals is beneficial for all involved. You can keep this core group informed of developments.

6. Use a service like Eventbrite, Amiando or meetup.com to organize your guests, collect donations and otherwise provide shareable content. It takes all the legwork out of the administrative work that a large Tweetup entails. If you are planning on a smaller gathering…this may not be necessary and you can use Facebook or your blog to organize.

Tweetups, like mixers, are great to bounce social media management ideas off of each other.  What better way to learn about social media!

1.    Avoid games that give away information

There are plenty of games out there that ask you to enter your street name or pet’s name as password-reset questions.

2.    Direct Messaging Can Be Just as Risky

In order to direct message someone on Twitter, you both must be following each other.  Be aware of who you are messaging and avoid giving away any personal information on Twitter or any social media in this case.

3.    The Less, The Better

Avoid checking into places.  This goes for Facebook and foursquare as well.  Sharing locations on social media is quite simple allowing everyone to see your exact location, often times sharing it to people you have no desire of sharing that type of information.

4.    Disable location services on your Smartphone

Real time access of your location is dangerous for stalkers, burglars and anyone else that shouldn’t know your current location.  To disable this feature, go to Twitter’s Account setting page, de-select “Add a location to my Tweets” under “Tweet location.”

5.    Switch Your Profile to Private

Setting your feed to private is an excellent way to keep your tweets accessible only to those who follow you.  From the settings page, select account, go to Twitter privacy and select protect my tweets.

With the integration of social media into marketing and business strategies, it is important for companies and brands to understand how to correctly execute social media management and understand how the platforms work.  There are many misconceptions and myths on social media.  Check out this article that debunks these misconceptions/myths from Business 2 Community:

Mistake #1. Not Having a Plan

It is imperative that any business looking into social media services establishes a plan. Determine goals for yourself. Set objectives for each site. Are you trying to get 10% more followers each month? How many people would you like to interact with each week? There are so many aspects to a business social media marketing strategy, a plan is a must have advantage.

Mistake #2. Size Doesn’t Matter

Thinking that the size of your audience is most important. Totally wrong. Size doesn’t matter, activity does. You are better off having an intimate group of engaged followers that are constantly interacting with than having thousands of complacent followers that don’t. More followers and more traffic does not equal more money, you need the right people to engage with your business.

Mistake #3: Not Dedicating Time to All your Accounts

Each social media account should have a fair share of your business effort attention. Avoid biting off more than you can chew. If you only have time for Facebook or Twitter, it’s okay. Just be sure to do all you can with those sites. Don’t start a Pinterest, Foursquare, or Tumblr if you don’t have the resources to maintain them.

Mistake #4: Talking About Your Business in Every Post

Vary up your posts so you’re not always talking about your business! Sometimes you have to think of your business as if it were a real person. Don’t be like those people who constantly talk about how awesome they are. The more you force information in your audiences faces, the least likely they are to respond.

Mistake #5: Grammar and Spelling Mistakes

There is nothing attractive about spelling and grammar mistakes. (That sentence alone was painful for me to write.) Double check and proofread your material before you send things out to into the internet. Not only will you look silly, but you could also harm your credibility.

Mistake #6: Not Tracking your Stats

Statistics are important in every marketing campaign. More and more social media services offer analytics and reports to track your page views, post reads, shares, activities, and more. This is all valuable information because it tells you through data which posts your audiences respond best too so you can do more of them.

Mistake #7: Lacking an Online Personality

Social media gives your business the opportunity have a strong and unique voice. Let your hair down a little! Be open, insightful, funny – whatever you feel like your business should embody, do it!

Mistake #8: Not Engaging your Audience

Ask questions! Get Feedback! Start discussions! Outlets like Facebook and Twitter give you the chance that no other marketing channel offers: the opportunity to socialize and connect with your audience on a public and social level. Not only does this strengthen customer relationships, it also brings more activity to your business.

Mistake #9: Getting Defensive or Negative with Comments

Let’s face it, the internet is swimming with people. And unfortunately not all of them are going to be nice or agree with your business. Keep you cool and handle these comment gracefully. Remember, everything is public! It’s always better to be the bigger person in these situations.

Mistake #10: Giving up!

Building your social media up takes some time! Don’t give up. Stay Active. Be patient. Your efforts will pay off, just give it some time! Mistakes are part of the learning process. If you find that you’re sheepishly guilty of a few of these, don’t sweat it! Just take this information and learn from it. Get out there and conquer the social media marketing world!

According to Mashable, “as marketers, we need to embrace this fundamental nature of user behavior; namely, that people act, engage, and respond not solely as professionals, but as nuanced human beings. Users are not simply — and absolutely cannot be solely treated as — potential sales. Our campaigns, programming and offers must be built to connect with users on that human level — which encompasses, but is not wholly defined by — their professional status.”

It is hard for brands to be able to engage effectively through social media marketing with their consumers if they take on a “professional” approach, thus resulting in limited engagement.  When we are thrown into a serious environment, we take on a serious approach towards interaction.  When we are out with friends, our interaction standpoint takes a complete 180, for the most part.

Being humanized creates a friendly approach to a brand.  For example, many brands take it to Twitter to interact with their consumers (ie. Customer service issues, etc.).  This is an excellent social media marketing tactic that shows consumers that brands are not treating you solely as sales potentials.

Mashable states that, “every corporation, no matter how buttoned-up, no matter its product or service, has a unique personality. Being human in social media, then, involves identifying all aspects of that personality — even the less obvious or less corporate ones — and embracing them as a whole. From there, the surface symptoms we referenced at the beginning of the column — tone, language, aesthetics — will be easier to define.”

You may not realize, Pinterest is growing to become an excellent medium for Business to Consumer brands, specifically with search engine optimization services.

Here are a few tricks and tips on optimizing pins:

• Personalize the pin with specific geographic location or gender.  Choosing your keywords wisely is key to for any SEO strategy, utilizing “long tail” keywords is especially beneficial

• Yes, hashtags are applicable on Pinterest too! Just like Twitter, Instagram and Google Plus, it creates greater visibility for the pin, making it more discoverable.

• According to Social Media Today, “backlinks form the core of any search engine optimization campaign. It is very important that your site get a link back from the pin. While those links from Pinterest are ‘nofollow’ meaning you may not get the SEO juice, but you cannot discount the traffic that can be generated by backlinks. You should even consider adding the URL in the description, so each time the pin gets shared, you have stand a chance to add multiple visitors.”

• The “pin it” button works wonders! Having that button on your site will make it easier for site visitors to pin images from your site, in return sending more traffic back to your site.

Happy Pinning!

The social network has begun the feature with select profiles offering a variety of categories.  According to Mashable, “listed next to the small icons for adding a picture or a graphic location, a smiley face image now resides with the following prompt: ‘news: share how you’re feeling or what you’re doing.’

Enjoying ice cream with friends? At the movies enjoying popcorn and Coke? Search for the title of the movie and it will add a film board image. According to Mashable, this connects your conversation to a show, movie, artist and so on, and possibly opens up the door for more ad revenue for the company in the future.  Could the future of social media marketing lie in emoticons? If emojis are all the rage with iPhone, having that feature for all Facebook users could only mean one thing #EmoticonTakeOver.