Centralizing your social media presences: tips and a warning

Social media can be a maze at times, with hundreds of services colliding to create an environment that confuses even the most tech-savvy marketer.

From Facebook to Twitter, all the way to services like Seesmic and Ning, marketing through social media can often seem like an endless quest to register even more profiles and fill in even more forms. And I even haven’t talked about Digg, FriendFeed, Delicious, Reddit and so many others yet.

Of course, when you spread your influence across multiple profiles, the workload quickly follows. Menial tasks dominate your social media marketing inventory, and even the simplest announcement becomes a two-hour job as you post it across multiple profiles, services, and platforms.

Centralizing your social media presence gives you a chance to cut down on work and increase your online influence, all at the same time.

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Four community-building tips for social media

The world of social media has presented some unique opportunities not just to marketers, but to community organizers and communicators. While ‘community’ is becoming the online business world’s hottest buzzword — and most misused, if predictions are any guide — the predictions and proposed changes are at this point limited to the business world.

Building a community is not limited to people with a product to market — it can be a remarkable opportunity for entrepreneurs who are still deciding on a product, non-profit groups looking to unite passionate people, and of course, marketers looking to connect with a wide audience.

These four methods will help you build a community, connect with your users, and create social media ‘permission marketing’ assets:

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