#5in5 Stratospheric social media tips - Five in Five series

The Go-Giver is a gem of a book, written by John David Mann and Bob Burg. The book outlines 5 laws of stratospheric success. Law #3 of The Go-Giver is The Law of Influence, which says, “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”

So today's five in five series outlines 5 ways that you can place other's interests before your own. Random acts of social media if you will!

If you don't have the accounts that I refer to in each action, create one and link to some friends and colleagues on each!

1. Go to Linked in and write Recommendations for 3 of your friends or colleagues.
2. Visit a blog on a topic that you are passionate about (http://blogsearch.google.com/) and write a comment on one of the posts.
3. Watch a video on YouTube and if you like it, take the time to say something nice in the comments about the video (if you need a headstart, try www.youtube.com/chickefitz)
4. Re-tweet someone's post on Twitter
5. When you accept an invitation on Facebook, take the time to recommend some other people that they should link to.

Here's a secret - if you do this for 30 days, I guarantee you that you will see stratospheric benefits!

Twitter Basics - Get on the Social Graph, Catch the Buzz

Have you been hearing the buzz about Twitter? Is the Pope Catholic?

If you have been afraid that Twitter will suck you in and you will become the man on the commercial "tweeting" about sitting on the deck with his teenage children rolling their eyes, watch this video and get some ideas on how this micro-blogging tool can help you grow your network, your reputation, your brand, your business.

#5in5 Twitter Five in Five™

Today's Word of Mouth Media Five in Five™ list is for Twitter™.

1. Look at the Twitter Trending Topics in the right margin on the Twitter page and follow someone that posted something interesting on a topic that intrigues you.
2. Retweet a post from a good friend
3. Search for your own name or company name in http://www.search.twitter.com and see what folks are saying. If no one is talking about you, check back in a week after using Twitter Five in Five™ and see if anything changes.
4. Thank someone that retweeted one of your posts
5. Using @ and the person's name, acknowledge several people that followed you recently

Word of Mouth Media™ launches Five in Five™

Participating in social media doesn't have to be time consuming.

There are some very simple things that you can do each day to further your social media strategy that will take less than 5 minutes.

Today Word of Mouth media launched "Five in Five™" or in Twitter parlance #5in5. The goal is to outline five social media strategies that can be done in just five minutes a day.

Whether you are trying to increase positive word of mouth activity about you or your company, getting on the social grid really boils down to regular activity (daily if possible) that:

• avoids the two bottom rungs of the Relationship Ladder, SPAM and NOISE and
  
• works toward relationship and engagement.
  

Understanding the importance of both relationship and engagement in social media is critical to being able to create the strategy that is right for you.

Join our Facebook Fan page and contribute your ideas for Five in Five.

Twitter - Self-expression is liberating

So who doesn't want to be liberated? I know that isn't a word that is used often these days, unless you are in jail in the Ivory Coast (can you tell that I watched Blood Diamond this week?). Or perhaps you are reminiscing the 70's and what it was like for a woman to actually get a full time job and to open doors for men if she felt like it.

But I'm not talking about breaking out of jail or women's lib. I'm talking about letting out the thoughts that are trapped inside your head, or even more, your heart. Taking off your shoes after a healthy rain and going for a walk and then letting the description of that walk make it out of your experience and into the blogosphere.

Well, I didn't go for a walk in the rain, but this week I published my first business book, Bootstrap Business, and I can tell you that getting to express yourself in print, along with the likes of Tom Hopkins (The Art of Selling), John Christensen (Fish!) and Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul) is heady stuff!

When the UPS man arrived with the 15 cases of books, it was all I could do not to kiss and hug him. I settled for giving him an autographed copy of the book! After that, what was the first thing that I did? Well of course, I published that "walk after the rain" moment. On Twitter.

So why Twitter? How liberating can 140 characters be?

Well, truth be known, it wasn't just Twitter. I use Ping.fm to reach the thousands that follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and other popular social media platforms. It is all about Word of Mouth after all. And I wanted to shout on the housetops that my book was finally out! And 140 characters was enough.

But now, with a little more time on my hands (and some background work in place), I now move on to the blog behind the Tweet strategy of sharing my excitement about my book and linking to a little more information than just talking about hugging the UPS man to my network.

So the story behind the story is that there was groundwork that needed to be put down before I could take it further than just a simple Tweet. Now I have stepped back and deployed what I have learned in my social media immersion training over the past 6 months and have created a Facebook fan page for the book (which I dutifully shortened to www.tinyurl.com/fbbootstrapbusiness). I of course Tweeted about that. I posted the press release on numerous sites and Tweeted about that. Yesterday we put my book on Amazon (another thrill) and of course, am Tweeting about that. And tomorrow, I will do a couple of videos and will of course, Tweet about that. And then comes the article marketing strategy. You get the picture.

So, is Twitter the power behind the liberation? I vote yes. At least as the first step in my overall book promotion strategy! More on the other components as the week progresses!