1. Study the web analytics for your blog site – which posts pulled a high volume of traffic or

generated the most comments? This will help you create the most compelling content

for future posts.

2. Shorter is better – writing for a blog requires different skills than normal copywriting. Take

a leaf out of the book of tabloid newspapers and keep your sentences and paragraphs

short and to the point.

3. Publicise your posts on social media – make sure you notify Twitter or Facebook followers

about your latest posts to drive traffic back to your site.

4. Don’t make your posts too commercial – it’s not all about sell, sell, sell! Your readers

are likely to come back if there is plenty of useful content that resonates with them without

pushing products too heavily.

5. Make your headlines snappy – keep your headline short and intriguing to encourage

visitors to click through and read the full post.

6. Always respond to comments – if someone leaves a comment – good or bad – always

reply. This will let users know you care about feedback and encourage real engagement by

generating rapport.

7. Embrace the blogosphere – a great way to increase awareness of your blog is to read

other blogs, making sure you leave a comment so others know you are active in

the blogosphere.

8. Invite guest bloggers – why not invite a customer to blog, or even a partner or supplier? It

will help to keep content varied and high profile names can attract new followers.

9. Include keywords in your posts – use you blog to drive SEO. Ensure your blog site is

hosted on a seperate IP to your ecommerce site and include plenty of keywords with links

back to your main site to help drive SEO.

10. Blog often – infrequent blog posts aren’t really going to cut the mustard. Blogging on a

regular basis will help build up and maintain a following.

1. Make sure you register your brand name ASAP! – with the popularity of Twitter

increasing at a phenomenal rate, it’s vital to claim your ID before someone else gets it first.

2. Write a biography – think carefully about what you want to write in the biography section;

this is your opportunity to sell yourself.

3. Add your logo and design a background – creating a customer Twitter background and

featuring your branding and logo will help to strengthen your online identity and

encourage recognition in the busy Twitter ‘market place’.

4. Use hash tags in your tweets – users can track tagged keywords (eg #iPad), so if you use

a relevant tag that is trending you will increase the likelihood of people coming across

your content .

5. Encourage ‘retweeting’– getting your followers to retweet your posts is a great way to

spread your influence. Keep your tweets short and engaging to maximise retweet potential

and don’t be afraid to ask followers to retweet a post.

6. Engage – rather than using Twitter solely as a broadcast tool, don’t be afraid to engage

with followers. Use @replies to respond publicly (this will notify the original poster of

your response and thread it so other users can follow the conversation), or direct

messaging to respond to something privately, for example if you receive a complaint

or query about a specific order.

7. Get ready for customer service enquiries – it’s highly likely you will be contacted via

Twitter with customer service questions. These shouldn’t be ignored. Be prepared for your

reader to tell you how best to deal with them.

8. Special offers work – Dell generated $6.5m of revenue on Twitter alone by using offers!

We all love a discount and what better way to spread the news of your offer than on

a social network.

9. Be generous – retweet or comment on tweets by other people and show them you’re not

just interested in what your brand has to say.

10. Monitor – make sure you monitor what tweeters are saying about your brand or your

industry so you can pick up the positives and negatives and handle them effectively.

Twitter search or Tweetbeep are great applications for this.

And a word of caution...

Be aware of Twitter ‘follow bots’ – some companies use bots to automatically follow users

(sometimes randomly, sometimes targeted to demographic data or use of key words) in the

hope that users will follow them back. This may have some small value in increasing your base

of followers, but is seen as annoying and intrusive by most users and may earn you a poor

reputation.

1. Use your logo – it makes sense to use your logo as your profile picture. This will help

increase brand awareness.

2. Run a Facebook exclusive competition – reward your fans and encourage more customers

to sign-up by running exclusive competitions, only open to Facebook fans.

3. Include ‘become a fan’ links in your email marketing – linking email marketing to social

media can be very powerful, so publicise your fan page in your newsletters.

4. Publicise your Facebook presence on your website – make sure your website users know

about your Facebook profile/fan page and can access it directly from your website.

5. Bring some personality to your updates – using a corporate tone won’t work on Facebook,

so keep it informal and friendly.

6. Remember your audience – Facebook is generally used to stay in touch with ‘real-life’

friends so bear this in mind when it comes to the tone of your posts. You aren’t writing for

the boardroom. Keep content informal, friendly and interesting.

7. Post product pictures – if you have some great product imagery, or photos of people

using your products, post it all on Facebook and encourage your fans to share it with their

friends.

8. Distribute unique discounts – reward your supporters and increase your Facebook fan

base by encouraging existing fans to spread the word to their friends

9. Ask for feedback – do you have a new product you’re thinking of launching? Why not ask

for feedback from your Facebook fans; this will make them feel valued and help to

encourage loyalty and referrals along with building anticipation and awareness of the new

product.

10. Try experimenting with some Facebook ads – this is a different (and paid for) Facebook

service which allows you to target all Facebook users in your demographic rather than just

your own fans.

Facebook provides a range of interactive possibilities for engaging your fans. Why not explore

how you can use Facebook to:

• Invite people to events

• Post video

• Create and join networks

• Mass message your fans

• Advertise

5. Google Buzz is well-suited for mobile, too. To succeed with any new application or social networking site mobility must be part of the strategy. And Google Buzz is delivering mobility in spades. First there will be a Google Buzz mobile application for the Apple iPhone and Google Android. There will also be a Google Mobile Maps update tying in Buzz functionality for a host of mobile platforms. And, Google will launch a mobile site to access Buzz. While both Twitter and Facebook have come a long way with their mobile plays, the fact that Google has designed Buzz with mobile in mind -- and baked in location-based information that takes Buzz to a new level -- bodes well for the fledgling social networking service and has Google Buzz poised to best its rivals while on the go.

By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , ChannelWeb

1. Make sure you register your brand name ASAP! – with the popularity of Twitter

increasing at a phenomenal rate, it’s vital to claim your ID before someone else gets it first.

2. Write a biography – think carefully about what you want to write in the biography section;

this is your opportunity to sell yourself.

3. Add your logo and design a background – creating a customer Twitter background and

featuring your branding and logo will help to strengthen your online identity and

encourage recognition in the busy Twitter ‘market place’.

4. Use hash tags in your tweets – users can track tagged keywords (eg #iPad), so if you use

a relevant tag that is trending you will increase the likelihood of people coming across

your content .

5. Encourage ‘retweeting’– getting your followers to retweet your posts is a great way to

spread your influence. Keep your tweets short and engaging to maximise retweet potential

and don’t be afraid to ask followers to retweet a post.

6. Engage – rather than using Twitter solely as a broadcast tool, don’t be afraid to engage

with followers. Use @replies to respond publicly (this will notify the original poster of

your response and thread it so other users can follow the conversation), or direct

messaging to respond to something privately, for example if you receive a complaint

or query about a specific order.

7. Get ready for customer service enquiries – it’s highly likely you will be contacted via

Twitter with customer service questions. These shouldn’t be ignored. Be prepared for your

reader to tell you how best to deal with them.

8. Special offers work – Dell generated $6.5m of revenue on Twitter alone by using offers!

We all love a discount and what better way to spread the news of your offer than on

a social network.

9. Be generous – retweet or comment on tweets by other people and show them you’re not

just interested in what your brand has to say.

10. Monitor – make sure you monitor what tweeters are saying about your brand or your

industry so you can pick up the positives and negatives and handle them effectively.

Twitter search or Tweetbeep are great applications for this.

And a word of caution...

Be aware of Twitter ‘follow bots’ – some companies use bots to automatically follow users

(sometimes randomly, sometimes targeted to demographic data or use of key words) in the

hope that users will follow them back. This may have some small value in increasing your base

of followers, but is seen as annoying and intrusive by most users and may earn you a poor

reputation.