A large portion of my job is to conduct research in order to find how and if local businesses are using social media. For the most part, many companies have a Facebook and Twitter page set up, but seem to post infrequently and only use content that directs their fans to their website. This is upsetting for me, as I’m sure most of these companies believe they have a good social media strategy in place. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Content is king when it comes to your social media strategy, so let’s see how, when and what you should be posting.

Read More

Today’s Social Media Spotlight proudly presents Carol McManus, America’s LinkedIn Lady. Carol is a marketing and social media consultant for businesses, who offers executive coaching and social media consulting. After leaving an executive corporate position, Carol decided she wanted to start her own business. She started using social media as a way to get known, and after much experimentation with multiple sites, invested her time in LinkedIn. By building relationships and adding value to the conversations in LinkedIn groups, Carol was able to gain significant recognition, and began to hold speaking engagements about her LinkedIn success. Initially, her speaking events were casual, but after noticing that there was a huge ignorance and fear factor associated with using social media platforms, Carol began offering consulting services.

Carol coined the name America’s LinkedIn Lady because her speaking events became weighted towards LinkedIn, so people would refer to her by that name. She decided to brand herself around the LinkedIn platform in order to correlate with her B2B marketing strategy and professional target audience. Although she works with all social media platforms, LinkedIn has greatly helped to differentiate herself from the other social media “experts.” She has even launched her very own product, the LinkedIn System for Success! Here’s an inside look at what Carol has to say about social media for businesses…

Read More