As we near the end of my blog post series about how blogging and social media work together, in this two-part post I’ll be exploring YouTube. For an expert view, I interviewed Anthony Idle from Local Video Marketing. Anthony shows local business owners how to use video in their online marketing even if they hate to be on camera and have zero budget.

I met Anthony on LinkedIn via Des Walsh’s 30 Day Linking Blitz, a program designed to help people increase their effectiveness on LinkedIn.

1. How would you describe YouTube overall as a social networking site?

I believe that YouTube is a sleeping giant of a social media site. Currently, it’s flying under the radar and when people are on YouTube they don’t realize that they’re part of a social media site. They’re not aware of the power of YouTube to attract more clients and visitors, and grow their audience in their particular niche.

Let’s look at the facts: Facebook gets, daily, something like 620 million visitors. YouTube gets 500 million visits a day. It’s nearly as big as Facebook, it just doesn’t have the perception of being a social media site. I really think that the giant’s waking up. Recent moves to retire the video comments inside of YouTube signal that Google is making fresh attempts to socialize YouTube. I predict a Google+ comment system coming to YouTube.

2. What are YouTube’s unique characteristics for business and lead generation?

Like Facebook and most other social media sites, there are two approaches for lead generation – organic and paid. With the organic approach, it’s similar to blogging, in that you need to complete the meta data inside your video post.

Action: The keyword that you’re trying to rank for should be prominent in three places: It should be the first word in your video description, at the start of your title, and it should also be one of your tags. Tip: For best results, use 15 or so tags in your videos, not two or three as people typically use.

The second approach is paid lead generation and that includes two strategies. First, you can promote your video to specific audiences, much like a promoted post inside Facebook. But the other way that is really unique to YouTube is TrueView advertising.

What’s so powerful about TrueView advertising is that you only pay for a view if someone actually watches the ad (they’ll have the opportunity to skip the ad in the first five seconds). You end up with a confirmed list of people who are interested in what you offer.

3. What are the best methods and tools for businesses to deepen their existing relationships and find new connections? I call this the “Expand your network” step.

Now this is a big question and a large reason why I am on YouTube. I believe that the further up the funnel that you want to go, towards the top of your funnel where you’re educating and motivating your audience, the more important it is to get your face on camera.

Video accelerates the relationship-building process, because people do business with people they know, like, and trust. Trust is a function of credibility plus reliability plus intimacy, divided by self-interest. With video not only can you establish your credibility – how you look and how you present yourself – but the intimacy part is really, really important as people can see your face, hear your voice, understand the tone of your language, see your eyes and see your smile.

You’re leveraging your ability to create a relationship by putting your face on camera. So many people hate to put their face on camera, and so it’s a differentiator. When you do it, people pay attention, and they feel as though they know you. You can’t get that from text. It’s face time.

When I was running a sales team in the States the big salaries went to the sales reps who got face time. It’s the same thing with online marketing. The big results come from building face-to-face relationships, and that’s why I choose video over text.

Just like with blogging, building an audience on YouTube requires regular posting, e.g., weekly on Fridays at 5:00. All the big YouTube stars know exactly what time of the day they’ll release their next video, and so do their fans, who watch for and comment on the videos as soon as they’re posted.

Action: Try to respond to all comments. This is what makes YouTube social, and is extremely important for relationship building. A lot of people have their comments linked to Twitter so if they comment on a video, it automatically tweets and then you want to keep that conversation going on Twitter to amplify that as well.

Creating a YouTube channel is another tool for building relationships. Not only can you put up to four links up in your channel homepage art, every time that you publish a video you have the ability to share its link to your broader social media audiences.

Anthony raised some excellent points about how YouTube gives us a face-to-face connection with our audience as a way of increasing trust and deepening our relationships. In the next post, he’ll talk about how to use YouTube to curate and share relevant content for your niche, both on your blog and on social media.

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Enjoying this series about social media and blogging? Check out the other posts here. You can also find my post about using Twitter for business at Social Media Today.

Continuing this series about how social networking and blogging work together, today’s post delves into the world’s largest social network, Facebook.

For expert insights, I went to Rebekah Radice. Rebekah is a social media strategist, content developer, trainer and community manager for Better Homes and Gardens^® Real Estate, serving as “the voice” behind the brand.

1. How would you describe Facebook overall as a social networking site?

Marketing a business online continues to evolve as more and more consumers turn to the web and social media for information. Facebook is an excellent conversation facilitator. It’s also excellent for eavesdropping. Listening to the needs of our consumers and then meeting them in real-time is one huge benefit I see to Facebook for any business owner.

It also allows you to focus on building relationships as opposed to simply pushing out information. On a daily basis, we can create engaging conversations around an existing business or brand.

2. What are Facebook’s unique characteristics for business and lead generation?

Social media has undoubtedly changed the way we interact with consumers and Facebook has been leading the way since its inception. Not only does it offer business professionals the opportunity to transition an established offline brand to the online world, but a way to create a vibrant and memorable online presence.

Consider this: According to recent Facebook statistics, 510 comments are posted, 293,000 status updates are posted and 136,000 photos are uploaded every 60 seconds. What an enormous opportunity for any business to connect and engage customers in a comfortable and relaxed environment where they are already actively spending their time.

3. What are the best methods and tools for businesses to find interesting content (to generate blog post topic ideas and share with their networks)? I call this the “Expand your mind” step.

The beauty of the web is that interesting content is everywhere and can come from a myriad of resources.

My favorite content curation tools are Feedly, a news aggregator that allows you to keep up with your favorite bloggers and websites all in one easy location. You can organize, follow and share your favorite content in the cloud-based platform or from the mobile app.

I am also a huge fan of Alltop, Google+ communities and Facebook lists. Each provides tailored content dependent on niche and the ability to make unique connections with other business professionals sharing similar content.

UPDATED AUGUST 29, 2013: I asked Rebekah to expand on her Facebook-specific suggestions for idea generation, and she shared these gems:

Facebook lists are a wonderful way to categorize friends and find relevant content that speaks to a select group of people. Lists also allow you to quickly view what that group is posting and talking about at any moment. You can step into the conversation or simply scan the feed to find topics that become instant fodder for blog posts.

Another great way to generate ideas on Facebook is through groups. Join groups that share common interests. For example, if you own a bakery, look for Facebook groups that talk about a love of desserts, baking, or any group catering to a niche such as wedding planners.

(Note from Linda: Here is a another helpful article by Cindy Ratzlaff about how to use Facebook lists to grow your business page.)

4. What are the best methods and tools for businesses to deepen their existing relationships and find new connections? I call this the “Expand your network” step.

Facebook is a very visual community. There are many ways businesses can capture the attention of their existing fan base using images. Adding an eye-catching image to posts will make the post more attention grabbing in the newsfeed.

Another method I find very effective is creating a post that will spark conversation. Is there something happening within your industry that others will be eager to discuss or maybe a question you’re dying to ask?

Allow fans to offer feedback and insight. It can be extremely valuable as a crowdsourcing tool and as you test out new products or services.

5. What are the best methods and tools for sharing original blog post content on Facebook? What are the benefits of doing this? I call this the “Expand your influence” step.

Cross promoting your blog post content is an extremely effective way to build thought leadership and expand your network. Use tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer to schedule your blog posts throughout the week.

Many business professionals tweet or post their blog only once on the day they hit publish. Make certain you are making the most of your blog content by pulling quotes and useful tips out of it and repurposing them into simple graphics, a quick video or even the incredibly popular infographic.

Thank you so much for your contribution, Rebekah! I’ve enjoyed learning from you.

Adding more visual interest to your blog posts also came up in last week’s Google+ post from Paul Biedermann, and Denise Wakeman suggests that images are a cornerstone of online visibility. The lesson seems to be that no matter how well you write and how relevant your topics, to get attention on crowded social media sites like Facebook you need to stand out and be noticed.

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Enjoying this series about social media and blogging? Check out the other posts here. You can also find my post about using Twitter for business at Social Media Today.

While people are generating leads on all of the social media sites, LinkedIn is the #1 choice for business networking and business-to-business marketing. According to the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner, 70% of marketers surveyed are using LinkedIn, and 64% plan to increase their use of the site.

In this blog post series about how social media and blogging work together, we’re looking at how blogging helps you make a valuable contribution to your social media communities in three different ways. Today we’ll apply these to LinkedIn.

1. Expand your mind
2. Expand your relationships
3. Expand your influence

How to expand your mind with LinkedIn

LinkedIn saw how important blog posts were for sharing information, so they created their own blogging platform right on the site. You can browse through posts written by more than 250 business giants hand-picked by LinkedIn to be their “Influencers.” You’ll see these posts displayed as soon as you log into the site and there are always many interesting titles to choose from.

Influencer posts are great pieces of content to share with your network, since the experts have already been pre-selected by LinkedIn based on the quality of their work and ideas. Being associated with this premium content makes you look good. As a bonus, you’ll be expanding your mind with new ideas for your own blog posts, business, and life.

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Action: You can choose to follow specific Influencers, or LinkedIn channels that gather blog posts into similar themes and feed those to your Home screen. To customize your reading experience, look for the “Interests” tab on the LinkedIn menu, and then choose “Influencers” from the drop-down options.

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How to expand your relationships on LinkedIn

Take time regularly to browse through your activity stream to see the content people in your network have posted or shared. Show them you appreciate their contributions by liking, commenting about or sharing these posts.

Notice also who else has liked, commented on or shared a post that interests you. This is a great opportunity to grow your network by discovering new people with inspiring, helpful and like-minded ideas.

Other people may discover you the same way, either by noticing your comments or what you’ve liked, or by seeing when one of your mutual contacts likes something you’ve posted.

LinkedIn also tries to help you grow your network with its “People You May Know” feature for its desktop and mobile applications. However, the huge drawback here is that you do not have the opportunity to personalize the invitation (see action tip below).

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Action: When LinkedIn suggests someone you might know, click on the person’s name to open their profile page, and then use the “Connect” button to send your personalized invitation. In your note, mention what (and who) you have in common.

Gmail users, try this: Rapportive is a Gmail add-on that works in Firefox, Safari, Mailplane and Chrome. When you’re emailing someone to follow up a conversation from an event, Rapportive allows you to send a personalized LinkedIn invitation at the very same time! This is a seamless way to take your offline relationships online.

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Expand your influence on LinkedIn

Blog posts give you the opportunity to provide value by sharing helpful information with those in your LinkedIn network. In turn, this demonstrates your expertise and helps remind them what you do in your business.

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Action: You can easily share relevant content – whether your own or someone else’s – with the LinkedIn Bookmarklet. Here’s how to install it:

1. From any page in LinkedIn EXCEPT the Home page, scroll to the bottom until you see the navigation menu in the footer of the page.
2. Click on the word Tools.
3. Once you’re on the Tools page, click on the words “Sharing Bookmarklet” near the top of the screen.
4. On the next page, you’ll find instructions for how to add the icon to your browser so you can click on it to share a blog post or webpage you’re viewing.
5. For most browsers it’s as simple as drag and drop. If you’re using Internet Explorer, there are a couple of steps but they’re explained clearly on this page.

You can also insert the link of the blog post right into the update box on the LinkedIn site, but you must use the permalink (here is how to find the permalink of a blog post).

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LinkedIn offers a wealth of resources for gaining knowledge, connections and business. By finding and sharing valuable content with existing and new contacts, you can add value to their lives and businesses, and increase your credibility as an expert in your field. Ultimately, it will be your own well-written and relevant blog posts that will be most effective at expanding your influence on LinkedIn.

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Enjoying this series about social media and blogging? Check out the other posts here. You can also find my post about using Twitter for business at Social Media Today.

According to the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner, the top reason companies said they were using social media was to increase exposure for their business. What stumps many business owners, though, is this question:

What should I say?

When you post useful and relevant content (links to blog posts), you’re starting a conversation, one that hopefully grows as people respond to you and mention you in their own messages.

When people are talking about you and sharing your content with their own networks, this is “earned media,” the social proof that people are listening to you and value what you say.

Blogging is one form of what’s known as “owned media”: content you create and share to educate and inspire your audience, while teaching them who you are, what you do and what you know.

(Paid media is the third media type, and it’s just what it sounds like. For a more in-depth discussion about owned, earned and paid media, see this blog post at Branded3.)

Blog posts are the most important form of currency in social media, whether they’re yours or someone else’s. In social media, you trade blog posts for attention, visibility, credibility and connections. This is what turns social networking into business networking.

You are what you post

Sharing content on social media gives you exposure, and you want to be noticed for the right reasons. What topics do you want to be known for? Ideally, these will be the same topics you address in your business.

Remember that anything you put online is instantly public, and it is a permanent reflection of your business. Sharing something indicates endorsement or agreement, so before you like, comment or share, be sure to read the content through to the end. Always aim to add value to the people you’re connected to in your network.

To add value with the blog posts you share on social media, think about expanding – expanding your mind, expanding your network and expanding your influence.

Expand your mind

To be an effective curator of valuable content, and to keep creating interesting blog posts yourself, you need to constantly seek out fresh ideas related to your topic. Each social network has unique tools to help you do this, which we’ll be exploring in an upcoming series of blog posts.

You can also use your social media activity to generate blog topic ideas, by getting into a blogging mindset. Notice the conversations – especially the questions – that are happening in your groups, communities, chats and lists. What are some of the themes other people seem to be posting about? Find the intersection between these topics and what you do in your business; this can be your route to a goldmine of blog posts.

Expand your relationships

As you come across information, you’ll also be discovering people. Each network has ways to search for and follow these fascinating new friends. It’s also crucial to organize them so that you can continue to benefit from their expertise and build your relationships. In future posts we’ll look at how to accomplish this effectively on each social network.

Sharing posts from the people in your network is a nice way to grow your relationships, encourage reciprocity in terms of sharing content, and stay active so that your business continues to get noticed.

Expand your influence

The ultimate way to expand your influence on social media is to produce your own content in your own voice (otherwise known as blog posts!).

When you post a new article on your site, notify your network. Promote each blog post with several different “teasers” to invoke curiosity. Clearly state the benefit of clicking the link to read your post – are you offering solutions, information, inspiration, entertainment or something else?

Creating and sharing your own content on social media reminds your network of what you do. More importantly, it reminds people of what you know.

Here’s a summary of how blogging adds value on social media, whether you’re sharing your own posts or someone else’s:

• Blog posts give you something to say and a way to participate, particularly if you’re new to social media.
• Liking, commenting on or sharing blog posts from your network grows your relationships, gets your business noticed and connects you with new people.
• Posting your own original content demonstrates your expertise and reminds people of what you know.

Watch for more articles in this series about how social media and blogging work together. We’ll explore each of the top social networks, starting with LinkedIn.

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Links to all posts in the series:

• How to Be More Valuable to Your LinkedIn Network
• Is Google+ the New Frontier for Business Blogging? A Chat With Paul Biedermann of re:DESIGN
• Getting Your Business Noticed on Facebook – Tips From Rebekah Radice
• What Twitter Can Do For Your Business Blog – Before You Even Tweet – featured on Social Media Today
• YouTube Gives You Face Time With Prospective Customers
• Using YouTube to Curate and Share Relevant Content For Your Niche
• Bloggers: We Are the Media – Interview With Jeff Korhan