Thanks for stopping by to see who I am choosing for this week’s #Follow #Friday.  I have four persons selected, and hopefully, they will be someone you haven’t heard of before.  If you have, then it will only confirm what you already new!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/milwaukeejobcamp/

@KatieFelten — Katie is widely considered a Linkedin expert and she is the president of MKELive, a company that provides Linkedin training services for a wide variety of organizations.  Katie can also show you how to practice Bikram Yoga.

@Stephaniec2c — Stephanie is a key member of the Dallas based Marketing Zen online marketing company.  She really engages her followers keeping everyone up with the latest social media news.  When you get to know the lady behind the tweets, you find she is a down-to-earth, loving and caring mother and wife.

@PaulKirchoff — Paul may be the coolest CEO I’ve never met!  He runs a full service social media and online marketing company based out of Austin, TX.  Hey, we know that some of the coolest tech people come from Austin!

@scottica — I appreciate Scott who is the CEO at SWIX, a social media analytics company based out of Ottawa.  I tweeted about trying their service and he responded to me asking if I had ideas for improvement.  I have enjoyed trying the tools which are in beta, and I think they are a good solution for social media marketers to look at.  Give it a try.

There you go.  These are my Follow Friday tweeters.

Chris Brogan challenged many of us to handle Follow Friday different on twitter, and so I have decided to do just that.  With his suggestion, I have created a post mentioning my Follow Friday folks telling a little bit why someone should follow them.

Arkansite.com

You will have to bear with me here as I have a variety of interests that range from professional wrestling, to sports, to social media, to web design and many others.

@kaseyjohns–Casey is a talented website designer from San Marcos, TX and he handles promotions and the website for the Austin Turfcats, an arena football team.  I actually got to meet him when he came to North Little Rock with his team to play the Arkansas Diamonds where I was working.  Check out the Tufcats’ website.

@slims_conway–Did I forget to tell you?  I like food!  Slims has pretty good chicken in Conway, AR where I live.  They actually have several locations, so you can find one near you at their website.  I also like that they use social media.

@Strombolis1–Quite possibly the best stromboli on the planet!  Well, at least in Conway, AR.  I visited there on Wednesday and immediately realized that I had sinned (it has to be a sin to eat their food because it so good!).  I had some of their garlic knots, and oh they were so good!  If you are in Conway, check them out.  Oh yeah, and they are on Facebook too.

@Arkansite–Meet Shelli Russell.  She has started MySaline.com and Arkansite.com.  She has created these community-based, hyper-local sites in Central Arkansas utilizing Ning.com.  She does a great job of keeping up with the events and happenings going on in her neighborhood.  She is also a good neighbor lending her support to charitable causes.

So, there you have it.  These are my picks for Follow Friday on twitter.  Check these guys and gals out and follow them, because they are worth the follow!

Happy tweeting.

I see it all the time.  A company decides to create a facebook page or twitter account because that is what they heard they need to do.  They keep up with trends, they hear the buzz, and, after all, social media tools such as twitter and facebook are free, so why not?  They set up the facebook fan page or twitter account but no one comes and joins them.  When you look at their profile, they haven’t posted in months!  “Chalk it up to another fad,” they might say.  Of course, it didn’t cost anything to try social media.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/

Why do companies have little success using social media?  It is because they do not have a strategy.  Did you realize that social media marketing requires a strategy?  Maybe you just thought that all a business needed  to do was just set up shop and watch it take off.  It doesn’t “just happen,” and chances are, you may need to invest a little in a strategy.

How does one invest in a strategy for social media marketing?  Well, you find people who do it for a living to consult you and help you devise a strategy and implement your plan.  Where do you look for that person?  For one, start on the internet.  That is where they are!  Go to Google and type in your town and “social media marketing.”  It should bring up a list of people who can help companies devise a plan.

What kind of things do social media marketing experts do to help give you a strategy?  They will help you identify a purpose and a goal for your social media strategy.  They will help you set up your profiles or optimize what you already have set up.  They put in place metrics to track progress, and they will help you find followers.  A social media marketing expert will also help you see the “big picture.”  He or she may think that you need a blog.

It costs money for this kind of help.  The more success a person has had, the more their rates.  I have heard all kinds of fees.  I am willing to bet that the ones that charge the most are worth every penny!  Ask yourself, “Is it worth it to have more customers and being well thought of in the world of social media?”  Think about a tweeter who has several thousand followers talking about a great experience they had at your place of business.

The truth of the matter is if you intend to put together a social media marketing campaign, you have to have time or money, and in most cases, both.  The rewards can be unbelievable.  You will also need someone to run the campaign and keep up with your social media profiles.  If that means you have to hire someone to do it, then hire someone.

If you are in Central Arkansas, and you are looking for someone to help you set up a social media campaign or run your social media accounts, I am available.

I am not a twitter expert, but I have been using it for about a year.  As it stands at this moment, I have 659 followers, and about half have decided to follow me in the past month.  I am still learning about the tools available, largely because I haven’t been real serious about it until recently.  Twitter has a lot of benefits, but you don’t really see them until you have had several hundred followers.

Use twitter to connect

A colleague of mine told me a story of how she found someone to fill a need through twitter.  She was setting up a business exp for women and needed someone to fill a need at the expo.  She tweeted the need, and she receive a message from someone in another state (she lived in Texas).  They agreed to come to the expo for a business opportunity!  She just casually mentioned the need, and she received the response.

There are several resources available to twitter users, and one of the first that a new user should start with is twellow.com.    Twellow has many different resources, but the biggest one is a searchable directory of twitter users.  You register twitter account with twellow and you will be indexed in the directory.  Then, you can find people to follow using their directory, and others can find you.  They have a feature called twellowhood which helps you find people by geographic region using a map.  If you sign up, you should register with twellow to help kick-start your experience at twitter.

Another resource to use is Mashable.  Mashable is a well known blog which provides social media resources.  They have a whole section of their site dedicated to twitter, a guidebook if you will.  A post you might want to check out is their apps post.  It gives a run-down of the different apps-web, desktop and iphone apps-which can help you manage your twitter more efficiently.

So, go ahead, dive in to twitter!  It is a lot of fun, and it can help you communicate and network with more people than you can ever imagine.

By the way, I am @tejones at twitter.