Creative Concepts Review of Social eCommerce and Fashion Site, Styleowner.com

November 30th, 2011 by Valorie — No Comments

On a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, I happened to peruse a blog entry on Mashable about a site called StyleOwner.  I read about a lot of new sites and apps and always investigate them as possibilities for Creative Concepts and/or our clients and this time was no different.  As Mashable explained, you could create your own online boutique drawing from many established and up-and-coming designers the site has negotiated a relationship with and by selling your picks, you could earn 10% of sales.  Instantly, I felt that this was a winner which was strictly instinct as I hadn’t even gone to the site yet.  And this wouldn’t be for me because I don’t need another business…Creative Concepts and a new sister site being developed is quite enough thank you…but this might be fun as a mother/daughter project for the youngest entrepreneur in my family, Olivia.  As a side note, when Olivia was in 2nd grade, she created a store in our family room selling her stuffed animals for hugs and when she decided to hire her older brother to play cello to bring in customers (us), I knew that marketing and doing business were a part of her being even at that young age.

So it didn’t take much to get Olivia on board:

Me: “So, Olivia, do you want to pick out some cool clothes and accessories, sell them to your friends, and make money?”

O: “Sure Mom and can I get an iPad to help grow the business?”

Me: “Oh boy!”

So despite the perceived need for new tech toys from Olivia, I emailed StyleOwner for an invite (they are still in Beta) and within ½ hour we got the OK to build our site and boy what a joy it was and is!  Once we got our code, StyleOwner asked us to go through some very simple steps where we got to choose the name of our store and then we had the chance to design all the elements of the store from music that plays on our homepage, to the font and the background design where we had many options and styles to choose from.  Some elements we were able to pull from our own archives like the profile picture and a bigger picture that sits on the homepage so the setup of our store ended up being a nice combination of personalized elements and their templates which totally worked for us!

Next step was up to Olivia.  She built the store.  Styleowner has merchandise from a range of 75 individual brands she could choose from to help create a fashionista’s online dream.  From men’s and women’s clothes to categories like hats, scarves, jewelry and more, there was no doubt a store could be built that would provide a solution to everyone’s dressing needs.  Olivia took two days to go through every item that the site had laid out perfectly for the “stylist.”  While choosing an item to put into her store, she could click on an arrow to add to her store and she could click on a bubble to add a personal note about that item.  Other options allowed Olivia to choose from designers, categories of items or items based on pricing…so easy even a 6th grader could set up a store if they have an eye for fashion and a heart for sales.

So here is where the site gets super fun with the social commerce side of the business.  They have easy ways to share updates about your store on your Facebook and Twitter profiles (Olivia: “hey look Allie (a good friend), I found the perfect necklace for you!” which posts right to Olivia’s facebook and twitter profiles with a link to that necklace so Allie can see it).  Olivia can also create recommendations for her friends and share with them once complete.  Maybe Olivia’s sister needs some options for the prom so Olivia, with her “recommend” tool, could grab dresses, jewelry, and shoes so her big sis doesn’t have to go through Olivia’s whole store.

While Olivia was still in set up mode, I found a little something to buy because the item was cool (can’t say what it is because it’s a Christmas gift and others are reading this) and I wanted to test out the site as a shopper.  Again super easy.  I chose the item I wanted, added it to my shopping cart, bought it, got a confirmation email and within days received the item directly from the designer.  We realized that Olivia and other storeowners don’t have to mess with ecommerce and shipping and handling themselves because it’s a built in feature.  The ecommerce is managed by StyleOwner and the shipping is handled by the brands.

Other helpful tools provided for the “Stylist” is a forum to share your wishlist and problems (it is in Beta after all), incentives for selling like $25 gift cards after five sales which is big for a 6th grader, a blog for talking more about your fashion know-how, and amazing customer service which might be tested once they get more stores up and running but it works perfectly now.  There are some much needed elements like SEO for each store and analytics so you know if anyone is visiting but I am hopeful that those goodies will be provided for down the road.

As an up an coming business person, Olivia couldn’t have it better with this site (she has already made her first commission…ok, it did come from me but still…).  She has to be in tune with her potential customer,  keep an eye out for new designs provided by Styleowner.com that appeal to her clients and she has to continually market the site to preteens (her group), teens (her sister’s peers) and to the mom’s watching over their kids’ shoulders (do I have to say this is my peer group?).

With high quality products, responsive support on the backend for the store owner, and lots of room for personal expression and style from Olivia, the store owner, I am thinking she might just be paying off the mortgage soon with all that she can earn selling from her store, Liv2Shop.  Check it out and let us know what  you think!

Valorie
Founder, Creative Concepts


Creative Concepts Shares Why Sponsoring a Blogger is Good for Your Brand

November 23rd, 2011 by Susan — No Comments

Camp Mighty RMHCRecently, I spent a long weekend in Palm Springs, at Camp Mighty, a retreat for bloggers. My trip was sponsored by McDonald’s; they covered the cost of my registration and travel and all incidentals. In return, I served as an ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House Charities and their annual Give a Hand fundraiser.

As part of my trip, I toured the Loma Linda Ronald McDonald House, to get an inside look at how RMHC works; I also helped out with an on-site fundraiser at Camp Mighty as part of the Give a Hand campaign. Camp Mighty attendees raised $10,000 for the Ronald McDonald House Charities over the weekend, simply by having a message painted on our hands and then tweeting a photo of the message with a specific hashtag.

This was a terrific partnership, for a lot of reasons. I am always happy to talk with sponsors about picking up the cost of my travel to events like this, for obvious reasons, but I also want to feel like I am representing brands and programs that fit organically with my life and my writing. The RMHC program was a perfect fit for me, particularly this fundraiser. As a parent and a fashion blogger, a fundraising effort that benefited kids and had a strong visual component was a good match for what I’m already writing about.

My presence at Camp Mighty was also a win for McDonald’s, because it gave their fundraising effort a familiar face. The other Camp Mighty attendees were my peers, and so talking with them about the Ronald McDonald House Charities and encouraging them to take a few minutes to participate in the Give a Hand fundraiser was an easy thing for me to do. And it was much more natural than the McDonald’s PR team trying to do the same thing.

Sponsoring a blogger for a specific event — a conference or retreat, for example — is an easy way to raise your brand profile within that blogger’s community. Working with a blogger gives your brand a familiar face and voice, one that readers already trust and look to for guidance. In some ways, this is the next iteration of the celebrity spokesperson strategy, but instead of hiring a movie star or model, you’re asking a blogger to be the voice of your brand. And we know that consumers are listening to bloggers, so you can be sure your message is getting to the right people.

Photo: Susan Wagner

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Creative Concepts Shares Facebook Places and Deals – The Social Leg of Mobile Commerce

November 16th, 2011 by Heather — No Comments

Have you heard of Facebook Places? It’s a geo-location feature for mobile users in the same realm as Foursquare, but it works with your existing social graph within the Facebook platform.  There’s no need for a separate friend list or new technology/app.

Places lets you share more than a status update with your own stream. It also lets you tag others you’re with (so the update shows up in their stream, too) and tag the place where you are. If the place has a Facebook brand page and you type the page name recognized by the system, your “check in” registers on the brand page, too.

In essence, if a woman and two girl friends had lunch at a great bistro with its own Facebook page, they could:

  1. Snap a pic of the three of them hamming it up
  2. Upload the pic and a status update to one of their Facebook profiles
  3. Tag the other two friends and the restaurant
  4. Have the activity show up on three Facebook profiles and one Facebook brand page

Interestingly, the benefits to location-based activity within the Facebook platform is somewhat symbiotic between the individual users, the brand page, and, of course, Facebook.

  • Facebook becomes further entrenched in our daily activities. We no longer use word of mouth alone to share stories about fun times with friends – we publicize it to our entire social graph network. This kind of behavior creeps into the awareness of others, and soon they’re trying it. The behavior becomes part of our culture over time.
  • The users benefit from the kind of name-dropping formerly only available when talking over the water cooler. Bouyed by the all-telegraphing framework that is Facebook, we can publicize things to the far corners of our friendship lists without fear of reprisal. How can it be bragging when it’s just a status update?
  • Brands benefit because the check-in activity is shown directly on the brand page wall. The more check-ins there are, the “cooler” the brand appears. Check-ins subliminally encourage others to get over there and see what’s going on.

For businesses, an uptick in Facebook Places use brings other benefits, too. Facebook Deals, kissing cousin to Groupon social coupons, is a simple, way to promote local retail outlets (Groupon, on the other hand, has been discussed at great length regarding its questionable long-term value to participating companies).

Jodi Ks Facebook Deals

Whether your business is a bistro or clothing store, you can offer three types of deals to those who like your brand page:

  • Individual deal – a simple discount or gift with purchase
    • A nice simple perk; when promoted inside the retail outlet, could encourage new “likes” which will expose new people to future updates and promotions.
  • Friend deal – reward groups checking in together
    • Likely a richer deal because someone has to personally endorse the outlet with a friend; when trust is on the line, the reward should be in keeping with the gesture. A great organic way to increase a brand’s fan base.
  • Loyalty deal – encourage repeat visits and long-term brand support
    • The richest offer you can make. Should demonstrate the value your business places on loyal customers who repeatedly purchase your brand.

Have you tried Facebook Places yet? What could Places and Deals do to drive traffic to your local business?

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Creative Concepts PR How-Tos: Building Successful Media Lists

November 9th, 2011 by Robin — 1 comment

Every PR person has to create media lists during their career. From building a list from scratch to accessing your own personal database of names and publications, either way – most clients and their products call for the creation of a media list tailored to their specific news and target audience.

Evan Carmichael has some of the best tips for creating a targeted and effective media list. With so much accessible information on-line, as well as the new media category of “bloggers,” building an effective list is still time-consuming but is also easier than ever.

Here are three more points I would like to add to Evan’s list:

  1. Because we are often given small budgets for PR, online newswires and database directories should be used as a last resort. While they often offer up-to-date factual information, more times than not, the information about the particular journalist or producer is not always accurate which wastes time and money.
  2. One of the most important aspects of your media list spreadsheet is a section labeled “notes.” Every media contact should have a few words next to his or her name on the list. What stories do they like? What are their pet peeves? Do they accept products? This kind of attention to detail will pay off, and perhaps make your next list a breeze to create!
  3. When you have down time, update. Look over your lists, do some research, ensure the contact is still there, or that the phone numbers or addresses are correct. Maintaining the lists are often more important than creating them!

So good luck in building your list and let us know if you have any other hints and tips we can use for the next time we build our own list!

Image via Motion Picture Association of America


Creative Concepts Shares How to Use QR Codes in Marketing

November 2nd, 2011 by Stephanie — No Comments

What’s a QR code, you ask? QR codes (the QR stands for “Quick Response”) are those funny-looking little black diagrams that look like Rorschach tests, and they’re springing up everywhere, from direct mail pieces to billboards to product packaging. They’re easy to use, once you know what they are, provided you have a smartphone – you need to be able to snap a photo of the code, using special software (search your app store for “code reader app”) which you install on your phone. QR codes have been in use for years in Asia, where they’re used for everything from purchasing sodas from a vending machine to getting the nutritional information on a sandwich.How Marketers Can Use QR Codes

And they’re making their way here. In the past few months (though they’ve been here for a couple of years), QR codes are gaining popularity on packaging, outdoor advertising, and in magazines. You probably can’t open a copy of People, Time or Fortune without encountering a QR code in an advertisement, and possibly within an article as well.

If you’re one of those advertisers, or you have other places to put a QR code, what’s a smart marketer to do?

Content Plays

You can use QR codes to make consumers aware of other content you’ve created, like a blog post, recipe, or video. This is a terrific way to get consumers to pay attention to all that great stuff you’ve already got socked away.

Tips and Tricks

Don’t use valuable advertising or product packaging space for copy, place a QR code instead, and send your buyers to a page where they can learn the ins and outs of your product. Or give them a landing page with a bunch of recipes. Or the “Top 10 Things To Do With Your New [insert product name].”

Signups

You can use the QR code to bring users directly to a signup page where you can collect their info for an email list, register them for a promotion, or RSVP them for an event. Just be sure that the form is not too complex, because people will be typing on their tiny mobile keyboards.

Coupons

If your product sells at retail or online, use QR codes to offer coupons. When users scan a QR in a magazine, on a product package, or even in an image on Facebook, take them to a page with a barcode coupon they can use in the store. All they have to do is bookmark that page in their mobile browser and they’re ready to go. Even better: collect their email address before you send them the coupon via email.

Two important thoughts on how to implement QR codes:

  • Remember that people scan QR codes with their mobile phones. Therefore, whatever page you land them on MUST be mobile-optimized. Don’t take them to a huge page with tiny text that they have to scroll down to get to your content.
  • A good QR-content match is one where a user, after scanning the QR code, lands on a website or video which helps you further their insight or involvement in your product. Ideally, you’re not taking them to a different version of the ad; you’re bringing them somewhere enhanced or special – they should feel like they’re getting to see something that others don’t.

Are you currently using QR codes to market your business? Have you thought about using them? We’d love to hear about your examples and ideas in the comments.
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Creative Concepts Strategies for Finding the Best Blogger for Your Brand

October 26th, 2011 by Susan — No Comments

 

Last week, I spoke at the M2Moms conference in Chicago; I spoke to a wide range of brand managers and PR people who are sincerely interested in working with bloggers to get the word out about the products and brands they promote. Over and over, they asked how to find the best bloggers. The short answer, of course, is to do your research — there is no one-size-fits-all directory of Great Bloggers.

There are a variety of Best Of lists available; Babble Media’s Top 50 Twitter Moms is a perfect example of a really useful list. Their list covers a variety of categories (Most Controversial, Most Helpful, Funniest) and points to some of the most prolific mom tweeters on the web. If you’re planning a Twitter-heavy campaign, this list would be a good place to start. A simple Google search for “best mom blogs” turns up multiple lists — all of which are a good jumping off place for tracking down that perfect blogger. (You can substitute any term for “mom” — food blogger, craft blogger, dad blogger — depending on what exactly you’re looking for.)

Once you’ve found a list, take the time to actually read the blogs. This seems like such a simple directive, but it’s one that many PR people and brand managers often skip. Rather than pitching your brand or product to everyone on a list because they are on the list, pitch only those bloggers to whom your pitch will be relevant. There are lots of terrific mom blogs out there, but not all of those moms have babies; indiscriminately pitching a campaign for baby products to every mom on a particular list is a good way to convince bloggers you have no idea who they are — and, even worse, that you don’t really care.

Reading the blogs you’re planning to pitch is also important because you want to be sure the blogger’s voice and tone are a good match for your brand or product. Look for bloggers whose online persona is a good fit for whatever you are pitching. Look also for bloggers who are already writing about brands and products similar to yours; a blogger who writes frequently about the environment, for example, would be a terrific match for an ecologically safe cleaning product, but a poor match for an SUV campaign.

How can you measure a blogger’s influence? A quick way is to look at his or her Twitter profile. A blogger with a huge number of followers may very well be heavily influential on Twitter, but be wary of making a hiring decision solely on that number. A blogger who follows 200 people but is followed by 2,000 may very well be more influential than a blogger who has 25,000 followers but follows an equal number of people. In other words, a blogger who is speaking to a loyal group, even if they are on the smaller side, may do more for your brand than a blogger who is not genuinely engaging with his or her followers.

Photo via DonnyGamble.com

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Creative Concepts Asks, What Can Geolocation Apps Do For Your Business?

October 19th, 2011 by Heather — No Comments

Smart phone users experience many benefits by virtue of being digitally connected. When using mobile while spending the morning shopping with friends, getting a bite of lunch with family, then treating yourself to an indulgent treatment at the spa before opening night with the spouse, users can:

  • Redeem coupons sent by email or text
  • Compare product pricing among merchants and a retailer’s online shop
  • Use secure, cashless payment systems like Dwolla
  • Track meal points, look up calorie counts, and search for a vegan or gluten-free restaurant
  • Get directions and schedule appointments
  • Post photos and tips on social networks in real time
  • Buy tickets, text the baby sitter, and call for a taxi

Another often considered media for the smart phone are geolocation apps like Foursquare, Scvngr, and Gowolla. For users, these apps primarily serve as a form of entertainment through the earning of badges and progressive status achievements and the interactivity among connected friends. However, brands are increasingly finding ways to tap into the small but growing segment of online Americans who use check-in services which Pew reported to be 4% in 2010.  The study went on to explain Americans age 18-29 represent the highest demographic and somewhat surprisingly, 10% of those who use location-based services are Hispanic. Men outnumber women 2-to-1 in their check-in activity.

Card merchants like American Express are forging deals with apps like Foursquare to sweeten the participation pot. By combining gamification with spending, card merchants along with retail and personal services providers can take advantage of our culture’s growing deal-seeking, information-sharing trends.

Mobile marketing

Cardmembers can find exclusive specials on Foursquare when they connect their AmEx card to their Foursquare account. After synching them up, everyday check-ins can bring bigger perks in the form of unlocked specials which are credited back to corresponding expenditures on the card. Who wouldn’t want to tout their latest to-die-for shoe purchase to their friends?

For AmEx, the result is increased spending in the form of unplanned purchases, higher receipt values, and opportunistic transactions. In other words, once your account is synched and you check in your favorite clothing store as usual, you may be tempted to buy something you hadn’t planned on or buy more in order to take advantage of the special. Or you just may use your AmEx to buy the item (to earn the special) when you otherwise might have used your debit card.  In a test run earlier this year, AmEx reports a 20% increase in spending among those participating in the program than those who did not.

But what if your restaurant, shop, or venue doesn’t accept American Express? How can you benefit from the mobile, tech-savvy market?  Here are some low-fi ways to experiment:

  • Set your store/restaurant/salon up on Foursquare. Post notices from your Twitter and Facebook account to let customers know they can now check-in each time they visit you.
  • Put simple signage up inside the store. Be sure to communicate a benefit to check-in like periodic deals, perks for achieving certain status, etc.

What else might you do to capitalize on the geo-location craze?

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Creative Concepts Notes What to Do and What Not to Do When Pitching To Bloggers and the Media

October 12th, 2011 by Robin — No Comments

This link is a great example of every PR person’s worst nightmare: a journalist (or blogger in this case) makes fun of your pitch, shoots you back a snarky response, and it doesn’t end there as you continue to make more mistakes and they continue to broadcast it to their followers! Have you had this happen to you?  Do you never want to be on the receiving end of being called out online? Below are a few very easy ways to avoid this situation – even for the greenest PR person out there.

  • Do not send out your client news to anyone and everyone – really know your media outlet, know what it reports on, know its tone, know its past stories. This sounds really simple but I know so many PR People who pitch a good story to the wrong place – wasting everyone’s time and energy (and their reputation for the future).
  • Listen for media-feedback, and then incorporate that into your pitch moving forward—or perhaps even your current pitch. The writers, bloggers, and producers out there know what they want to write about –and know what their bosses what to see printed or on air.
  • Determine if no means not now – or no means “NEVER” This is subtle—but a PR person who actually speaks with his or her intended target will get a sense of whether he or she should stop sending this person pitches forever—or keep them on a list.
  • If No means never, don’t keep trying them with different angles of the same story. They could just be a media person who does not want any noise (or news even) from PR people. That’s THEIR problem. Leave them alone!

This brings me to my last but also very important point. Person to person contact is very important in communicating news. That, I hope, will never change. Really good, actually NEW information is difficult to obtain by Editors and Bloggers.  Public relations can help get the word out about a little brand that is trying to break into a bigger category or a company that is sharing industry news which can ultimately generate new ideas and then stories for the media.  Clever, well-thought out Public Relations campaigns are designed to inform and deliver news so please do follow the above points and make yourself (and the PR industry) an invaluable part of the news cycle!

Photo via Top Rank Blog

 


Creative Concepts Shares How to Create an Editorial Calendar

October 5th, 2011 by Stephanie — 1 comment

Being a social business is tough. There’s a lot of content to create and curate, and a lot of friendly back-and-forth that has to happen every day to keep your customers engaged, loyal and energized about your brand. And, of course, never enough hours in the day.

My secret to maintaining a solid social media presence for clients? The Social Media Editorial Calendar. This sounds like a big, complicated thing, but it’s really not. You can create one for your business; all you need is Excel and an hour or two over a few days to brainstorm and get it rolling.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Platforms

Outline all of the social and content platforms your business uses regularly. In many cases, this includes a blog, Twitter and Facebook. It could also include YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumbler or other platforms. You should also include any platforms you don’t currently maintain but you’d like to maintain – your calendar could phase new platforms in over time.

2. Topics

Determine the key topics you wish to incorporate into your content. You can go very narrow and on-topic for your business, or you can go broader in the hopes that you can attract people who may not be aware of your company. For example, if you’re a small accounting firm, you could focus your posts on tax issues, bookkeeping issues, and other financial/accounting-related topics; alternately, you could focus your content on the issues your ideal clients face more generally. So if you mainly work with artists and freelancers, you could post about a wide variety of subjects which could be appealing to them: finding work, improving your personal brand, how to manage money effectively, etc. Whichever way you go, don’t worry, this is not set in stone. You can broaden or narrow your content over time.

3. Categories

Determine how to bucket your topics in a handful of key content categories. This is an important step which many companies overlook. They start writing on a variety of topics, and eventually get off track because they lose focus over time. If you choose your categories at the outset (or add them in to make order within your content), you’ll always have a guidepost for your content as you can determine which categories are underserved and post in those categories. Category examples for the accountant example above (the broad version) could be: Managing Your Money, Getting Gigs, Your Personal Brand, Arts Happenings (interesting things around your local area or national), and Real Freelancers (stories of real people). You might also have a category for Company News (your company news) and maybe for Case Studies (your clients).

4. Focus

All of the content you create should fit into one (or maybe two) of your categories. If your content fits into more than two categories, that particular post or video may be too broad, and you may be able to break it into two or more posts or videos. If you find yourself having to break up a post or video, that’s not a bad thing – you get twice as much content for the work you’ve just done!

5. The Calendar

Now comes the fun part, and the part where you break out Excel. Create a little grid, like this (click to embiggen):

social media editorial calendar blank

(Don’t worry if yours is not colorful. Just make sure it has all the info.)

Here’s how you use each column:

Category: this is the category the content piece fits in to. Every item you post should fit into one (or two) categories.

Blog Topic: if your piece is a blog you’re writing, you can define the topic here.

Blog Title: When you write the piece (or as you think of it), add the title. The title may not come to you until later, so leave it blank if you need to.

Twitter: If you’re posting something to Twitter (your own or someone else’s), add that item here. Remember, your Twitter items should still fall into one (or two) of your categories.

Facebook: If you’re posting something to Facebook (your own or someone else’s), add that item here. Ditto on categories.

Links/Photos and Notes: These columns are like a “scratch pad” for whatever links, images, or notes you want to jot down for upcoming items in your calendar. You could include links to blog posts that sparked an idea, an link to (or note about) an image you know you want to include, or thoughts about clients you want to include in a case study post.

Due Date: Use this column to set a firm date for when the final draft of content you create is due to be posted into WordPress (or finalized as a video, etc.). This is important if you have other people creating content, but also helpful so you can stay ahead of your calendar. This date should be 1-3 days ahead of your Date Scheduled, to give you some room to review, edit, and/or move around if something more important comes up.

Date Scheduled: The date you want your content to appear in your venue or platform.

Date Posted: After your content piece goes live, note the actual date posted here. This way you can see how often you post and on what categories, when, as you look back across your work.

6. Brainstorm

Now grab a cup of whatever you drink, sit down, and fill in your calendar. Maybe enlist help from colleagues. Start with the content you’re going to create: blog posts, videos, questions on Facebook, etc. Add your topics in, week-by-week, taking care to balance the categories and the day of the week you’re posting. (How often to post is the subject of another conversation entirely, and varies widely by company and platform!) Think creatively, and think about what you can really execute on. None of this is set in stone, so just get it all out there for now.  Here’s what the start of a filled-in calendar could look like (click to embiggen):

social media editorial calendar filled in

7. Execution

On the day-to-day, your social media editorial calendar should be a roadmap to your social content presence. Ideally you’ll stay out ahead of it somewhat, filling in new ideas as you get them and removing those which you’re never going to actually get to. Hopefully you’ll stay a post or two ahead (at least) so the pressure of “what do I write today” is off, making social content much more enjoyable overall. And feel free to move things around, too; if there’s breaking news you have to get out there, you can easily push today’s post out a few days and substitute the news.

That’s it! An editorial calendar in seven easy steps. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Please let us know in the comments if you can add to our ideas or if you have questions. Good luck!

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Creative Concepts Tips on Choosing — and Using — a Social Media Platform

September 28th, 2011 by Susan — No Comments

Twitter

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook — social media provides so many ways to reach out to consumers and clients. How do you know what format is right for your brand or business? The first step is understanding how each of these social media platforms works.

Twitter: Twitter is a microblogging platform; you have exactly 140 characters (about the length of a text message) to convey a quick bit of information. Twitter is frequently compared to a cocktail party — there are a variety of conversations all going on at once, and you drift in and out of several at a time. Twitter can be used to direct followers to blog or Facebook posts, or to offer quick snippets of information.

How to use Twitter: Your brand needs a distinct voice to be heard in the crowd. Don’t just share links to blog posts or contests; talk about more than just your brand.

Facebook: Facebook is the online coffee shop, where friends meet to catch up and find out what’s new and cool. Facebook allows you to share multiple mediums — blog posts, photos, videos, quick snippets of information — with fans, in a format that is more detailed than Twitter’s. Keep in mind, though, that your Facebook updates show up in your fan’s feed in between updates from their actual friends; like Twitter, think of this as a conversation, not a billboard.

How to use Facebook: The best Facebook feeds are those from brands who are able to personalize their business. Successful brands have a voice — and sometimes a face — behind their Facebook updates, someone who makes the brand feel like a friend, not a company.

Blogs: A blog is old school social media at its best. Blogs allow you space to talk in detail about your brand or product, to provide consumers with in-depth information or inside scoop. But keep your blog posts relatively short — no one wants to read a dissertation-length treatise on why you’re the brand leader — and make sure you’re posting consistently. You’ll never create a following if your posting schedule is something akin to “once in a blue moon.”

How to use a blog: Keep blog posts focused and tightly edited; provide readers with enough detail to keep them engaged and informed. Make sure that your posts have a voice and a point — and, ideally, some type of narrative. People love a story, because it gives them a way to relate to you — or your brand.

No matter what platform you choose, there are a few general rules to keep in mind.

Updates — no matter what their length — should be well-written and grammatically correct. It’s ok to draft a Tweet or Facebook status update in the way you would draft a blog post; just because you’re limited to 140 characters doesn’t mean you can’t carefully edit what you’re writing.

Engaging in a social media forum means being social — take time to engage with your fans, followers and commenters. And don’t stop at responding to conversation they direct at you; engage with them on their own ground as well. The cocktail party analogy is useful here — no one likes the guy who only talks about himself. The same is true for brands.

Finally, if you’re going to use social media to reach clients and customers, make a commitment to do it right. Designate or hire someone to manage your blog and update your Twitter and Facebook feeds. In order to create a significant online presence, you need someone who can be online for a significant amount of time each day.

Engaging with consumers via social media requires a commitment of time and resources, but the return is amazing: you will create a community of fans who are loyal to and enthusiastic about your brand. And that’s absolutely worth the effort.

Photo via Twitter.

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