Use Social Media Tools to Put the Social Back in Social Media

You read the title right, this post is all about putting the “social” back into social media.  Seems like a no brainer to me, but there seems to be some serious confusion as to the social part of social media… did you get all that?  Social media is not, contrary to popular belief, just another internet marketing tool to drive traffic and increase revenues.  While certainly, that’s the goal — it can’t be the path.  It just doesn’t work that way.

Social media, by it’s very nature, is dynamic and potentially powerful to the online entrepreneur, but it requires engagement.  Period.  It requires a level of social behavior on your part, in order to truly be a successful part of your internet marketing campaign.  Period.

So, what’s keeping you from truly engaging in the social part of social media?  Is it the overwhelm?  Is it the mis-management of your time?  Is it your lack of understanding in how to be social in social media?

Here’s a list of the Diva’s favorite social media tools and Wordpress plugins that help our team stay on top of the social part of social media.  It’s all about the tools and how you use them to stay afloat in this crazy game called social media.  Using the right social media tools can help you manage the whole thing much more effectively and automatically!

Ping.fm

Ping.fm is a great social media tool that allows you to use iGoogle, GTalk, AIM, iPhone/IPod Touch, SMS or email to update a mutlitude of social media sites.  Sites included:  Bebo, Blogger, BrightKite, Facebook, Jaiku, Hi5,  LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Mashable, MySpace, Plaxo, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Twitter, and Xanga.

Ping.fm is currently in Beta, but promises to expand past it’s current social media sites list over the next months.  To get in, just send a shout on Twitter or enter the Beta code “letmeping” (most current) to get in.  You set up your accounts and that’s it.

The Diva team will be creating a quick video this week to walk you through setting up and using your Ping.fm account

Twhirl, Twitter, & FriendFeed

Twhirl is a handy-dandy social media desktop application that allows you to actively manage your Twitter and FriendFeed accounts, from one interface.  Not only will Twhirl save you time, but it sure makes being social much easier.

We’ve done some videos on how to use Twhirl, Twitter, and FriendFeed (along with some stuff from our favorite Twitter gurus):

Twitter Viva Visibility Style and Twitter Tools

The Online Solopreneurs Guide to FriendFeed

Check the Web Success Diva on FriendFeed

Twhirl for Effective FriendFeed Management

The Twitter Toolbox from Mashable

Wordpress Social Media Plugins

As you know, the Diva team only endorses a self-hosted Wordpress blog, so here’s our pick for the best social media plugins that help you integrate your blog with most social media tools you’re using to market yourself.  Many of these will help you automate much of the “social” part of social media marketing:

Twitter Tools Wordpress Plugin from Alex King

Twitter tools from Alex King is a great way to integrate your blog posting with Twitter.  Each time  you post a blog, if properly set-up this plugin will automatically create a Tweet with a link to your new blog post.  As well, you can create a blog post from your day’s tweets, and vice versa.

Share This Worpress Plugin from Alex King

Another great social media plugin from Alex King that inputs the ShareThis feature into each and every blog post or page automatically.  You can select where it displays and with the options at the ShareThis site, you can also make this a cool little dynamic graphic as well.  ShareThis allows your readers to share your blog post or page via email, RSS, and other social media sites.

FriendFeed Activity Widget for Wordpress

The FriendFeed Activity Widget is a simple WordPress widget plugin that pulls your FriendFeed stream, pretties it up a bit and shares it with visitors to your blog. It’s essentially a lifestream plugin that requires just a few steps to set up.

FriendFeed Comments Wordpress Plugin

This plugin will allow you to display on your own site the comments that people make on FriendFeed about your post.  FriendFeed can often have more comments on a blog post than the blog post itself.  This Wordpress plugin helps keep those comments integrated into the your blog, encouraging readership and engagement.

SocialHomes Wordpress Plugin

A WordPress plug-in which adds a sidebar widget containing a subtle list of all your social homes as linked favicons.  It’s a great way to keep your readers up to date on where they can find you in the social media landscape.  The current list of supported sites includes:  Flickr, YouTube, DailyMotion, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Utterz, StumbleUpon, Digg, and more.

Sociable Social Bookmarking Wordpress Plugin

Sociable is a plugin which adds social media buttons to your posts, and does so easily, and beautifully.  If you’d like your posts social bookmarked, you’ve got to provide avenues for your readers to easily do it.  This plugin is one of the few that works great and looks great.

Gecko Tube YouTube Embed Wordpress Plugin

Gecko Tube quickly and easily allows you to embed YouTube videos into your blog, with one simple line of code.  No more need to know HTML or link to YouTube videos.

Facebook Comments Wordpress Plugin

Facebook comments is a Wordpress plugin that will import comments from your facebook notes back into your wordpress blog.  Great plugin to integrate more comments and reader engagement.

Add to Facebook Wordpress Plugin

This plugin adds a link to the bottom of each post and page on your blog with the text “Share on Facebook” or the Facebook icon or both depending on what you choose on the Options page.

CommentLuv Wordpress Plugin

Comments are a wonderful thing to receive on your blog, adding the dofollow plugin is one way to reward but why not place a link to their last post under their comment, with CommentLuv, you can do that automatically! This is an excellent way to promote comments from your readers.

TwitThis Wordpress Plugin

TwitThis is an easy way for people to send Twitter messages about your blog post or website. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.

Socialize Me Wordpress Plugin

With the Socialize Me! Plugin for WordPress you can connect with people on services like: StumbleUpon, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Pownce, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace and many, many more.  All you do is add in your profiles and usernames and let my Socialize Me! Plugin do the rest. It’s that simple.

Jaiku Wordpress Plugin

You can display your Jaiku status and post to Jaiku directly from your blog sidebar.

Technorati Rank Wordpress Plugin

Much more than the standard ranker provided by Technorati itself, this Technorati ranking plugin:

1. Compatible with WordPress 1.5 through 2.3
2. Requires SimpleXML Library enabled (default with PHP 5.0+)
3. Display your rank
4. Display your authority (on mouseover)
5. Display a link to your feed address
6. Display a link to your Technorati page
7. Display a link to add your site to Technorati favorites
8. Display a link to Technorati’s Where’s the Fire?

Of course, this list is not exhaustive - I’m good, but not that good.  The point is, stop focusing on keeping up, focus on the tools that can help YOUR business get YOUR message out to YOUR audience!

Here’s to your social media success!

Maria Reyes-McDavis

the Web Success Diva

PS.  Know of some cool social media tools and Wordpress plugins that make your life easier?  Sharing is caring…

Related Diva Posts:

• The Online Solopreneurs Guide to FriendFeed
• Get on FriendFeed with the Web Success Diva
• Check the Web Succcess Diva on FriendFeed
• Twhirl for Effective FriendFeed Management for Solopreneurs
• Are there any real uses for Twitter Grader from HubSpot?

---