Trackur: Brand Management & Social Media Monitoring

by Courtney Engle in Blog, Tech Tips

February 27, 2010 · No Comments

As businesses continue to implement a online marketing strategy, they quickly look for their social media return on investment.  Getting those numbers can be difficult if you don’t know what others are saying about you.  It is important to listen to implement brand management, or monitor what is said about you, your company, and any products or services that you offer.

If you’ve gotten one of those amazing SEO keywords lists, or a list of key phrases your ideal clients are using online, it makes sense to include those words on your own website, and in places that you or your company posts any type of content (status messages, photo tags, video descriptions, or just about anywhere else).  But, finding where people are already using those same phrases can help you know where the your ideal clients are already showing up online.  That’s where to go comment on blogs, engage in a conversation, share their videos or photos to your community, or just begin to observe what they are saying.

So – how are you monitoring this information?  Google Alerts is a good start, as is SocialMention.  Google Alerts doesn’t show the sentiment, or whether the information was favorable or not.  Social mention is a great start as well, but doesn’t let you save the information.  Many other more robust services have popped up.   Trackur has just announced a limited account option that is now FREE.  Check out how you can better monitor the real-time web with their service.




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The State of The Internet by @JESS3

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Wow - some of these numbers are really surprising to me, especially as the speed just continues to increase

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MeetWith.Me: How to show your availability for meetings

Ever need to show others, especially clients, when you are available for a meeting?  I keep all my appointments in my Google Calendar, and even share my meetings with assistants.  When I need to schedule a meeting with others, I often send them an invite to the event in my Google Calendar for them to confirm as well.  However, I have wanted a way to schedule client appointments with their help. MeetWith.Me has created a way to do just that.  I can now add a widget to my website that shares my calendar for clients and others to see.  Others cannot see who I am meeting with, but just my availability. What I would like to see in future releases of this service: a widget that I can properly resize for my website columns, and a way to embed the full calendar within my own site.  I do love the idea that clients can review my schedule and compare it with their own BEFORE scheduling an appointment with me. Check out my calendar

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Calendar

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How to move all your email to Gmail — Courtney Engle

Moving all your email to Gmail can make your web experience much easier.  No longer are you waiting on your email to download to Outlook, Thunderbird, or Mail.  Following these basic steps can get your email moved entirely into Gmail.

1. From the domain server, forward all email from a particular account to your Gmail address
2. In Gmail, go to Settings, Send/Receive
3. Add new email as a Pop3 account
4. Verify the changes
5. Select which email address to make primary, configure settings to send/receive based upon what it was sent to
6. Compose message using your email within Gmail.

Follow this video to learn how:

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How to Export Your Contacts and Scan Social Networks

As you create accounts on many social networks, the fastest way to find your existing contacts is to scan your address book.  But, this can be complicated if you are using a software email system, or have contacts on an email marketing platform.  Most social media platforms can scan Gmail, AOL mail, and Yahoo mail.  Learn how to get your contacts all moved into Gmail and scanned on Twitter to quickly connect with others.

Tip:

Monthly repeat this process, and scan your accounts for new connections.  It’s a quick way to find new connections you’ve just met at networking events or new sign-ups to your newsletter lists.

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Feedly: a prettier way to read Google Reader — Courtney Engle

Reading the news, blogs, and other ways of finding out what is happening in your specific industry is important to staying current.  For many, though, Google Reader isn’t the nicest thing to look at.  For those that want to use the features but with a better layout or design, add Feedly to Firefox of Flock.  Here’s a quick tutorial on installing Feedly, learning to use it, and some great shortcuts.

To get started, you’ll need to set up these places first:

• http://gmail.com
• http://google.com/profiles
• http://reader.google.com

Then go to http://feedly.com using Firefox or Flock to get started

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Google Buzz Reviewed

After two days of using Google Buzz, here’s my own review of likes and dislikes:

Likes

1. Brings the masses to life-streaming (collecting all your activity to one place)
2. Easy to remember if using Gmail
3. Fast updates (PubSubHubBub rocks)
4. Integration with key platforms, and more to come

Dislikes

1. No lists of contacts visible (Gmail Contacts should be called lists, not groups – and somehow make navigation in Buzz easier to sift through like Twitter and Friendfeed lists)
2. No groups or rooms feature (like Friendfeed)
3. No “Best of” feature to see what’s most popular for a day, week, month
4. No settings within Gmail to control Buzz
5. Forcing connections shared in Google Reader automatically
6. Security concerns and displaying most contacted people. See Lifehacker post
7. I must create a filter to turn off Buzz going to my inbox. Should be in settings please!  See Lifehacker post for help

Ideas

1. I want Disqus to collect the comments on my blog posts to Buzz back to my blog.  Likewise, I want comments in Google Buzz to show up in Friendfeed & vice versa.
2. Make seeing local Buzz posts from a computer as easy as it is from a mobile phone
3. Improve the mobile phone version of Buzz with better screen navigation
4. Get a CommonCraft video done about using Google Buzz

Tips on how-to do most everything in Google Buzz: by Fastcompany

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I’ve Screwed Up!

So in the past 1 1/2 years of being full time self-employed, I’ve learned a lot of priceless lessons, had a blast, and have also burned myself and a few clients in the process.  Here’s what I’ve learned recently: The Good Stuff:

1. I’m a tech news addict.  I want to stay on the “bleeding-edge”.
2. I am respected as knowledgeable in the internet & social media scene.
3. I love to help people and empower them - no matter how much or little they know now
4. I see the big “meta” picture, and can spout out ALL the things from here to there that need to be done
5. I will dive head-long into something and give it my everything

The Not-so-good Stuff:

1. I have not concept of how long a project should reasonably take
2. When I hit a speed-bump or road-block, I pick up the next thing and never turn back to finish
3. When I feel others question why this or that isn’t done, I can just freeze and not handle the matter
4. I undervalue my own time, especially when accounting for cost of business
5. I have chased after the smaller tasks while neglecting building a system that will truly leverage both the clients’ and my time, resulting in too much “winging-it”

Now - what will change?  For starters, I am scaling back on what I can and will do until I can put a team in place, beginning first with someone that will take the list of what I know needs to be done all the way through managing the time and assigning the team that gets it done.  I may pick up a few jobs that will take me no more than four hours of my own time to finish entirely. I am building a system.  What I cover repeatedly, like how-to operate this website, add thing thing to that place, etc. will be recorded and available for replay, along with MANY other ways to learn.  My time one-on-one with clients will now come AFTER a survey has been completed, saving their time and mine.  I will make better use of that time, and set boundaries for when, where, and how to communicate.  I will not take on more than I can manage. Those clients and jv partners that I’ve begun work with, I will ensure finishing it.  However, I now see that being so scattered is doing us all a disservice.  I may know my stuff, and have the best of intentions to serve, but fail in completion because I’ve relied too much upon myself. For those clients that I’ve dropped the ball with, I will be gifting each one or their team into my overall training program, and opening myself up to any webinars I conduct for others to them. What changes from here: I stick to what I do best.  I learn stuff, interpret it into the average person’s lingo, and empower others to get the tasks done.  I will learn all the tricks to making something awesome, and plan out the full scope.  I can and will continue to get my hands dirty, so to say, for the sake of learning.  However, for your best interest, as well as being more manageable for me, I will forgo some projects (like website creation) until I officially have a team set in place. Some lessons are hard to learn, and being transparent is key.  It’s a learning process... And I lay down all sense of pride to find out how better to serve. Next up: a personal email to the clients I’ve left in disarray, then back to building the Ark.    I’m nearly ready to open the doors on a systematized training program.  Getting things done!

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