For me creating a conscious business means planning our business and conducting the activities that generate revenue in a way that promotes and sustains the highest values of integrity, harmony, and well-being of self, others, and (for me) God. It means making business decisions realizing that we impact people all over the world and that we can’t afford to only consider ourselves and our immediate profit.

There has been a huge paradigm shift in the market place over the last few years and many business owners realize that the old ways of doing business no longer work like they used to. They are finding that cooperation and collaboration often work much better than competition. The companies that are the most profitable today marketplace are the ones that are giving away more for free by providing relevant useful information to their prospects and customers.

As a Social Media Specialist I am excited that Social Media has helped tremendously to further this conscious business model. Social Media is built on the concept that building relationships helps promote success. This includes building relationships both inside and outside company walls.

Nowadays it is extremely easy for businesses to start a dialog online. Because of the Social Media Networks, many companies are finding out that their biggest advocates are their satisfied customers. When the conscious business owner does the right thing for both their business and the world then Social Media can be used to get the word out across the Internet.

Social Media Marketing is much more effective than any other form of marketing. Studies show that consumers believe higher than 75% of recommendations made by their peers; while they believe less than 20% of traditional marketing messages such as newspaper ads or TV commercials.

This kind of marketing is so old it is new again! It’s called Word of Mouth and it’s the kind of marketing that happened on front porches across America back in the 50′s and earlier. Because of the Internet, it’s now Word of Mouth Marketing on steroids!

I challenge everyone who has a business online to engage your prospects and customers. They are hungry for conversation and for your involvement. Even customer service nightmares can be turned to your advantage if the rest of the world sees how quickly you respond to complaints.

Social Media has given power back to the consumer which is where it always should have been. Now many businesses are using Social Media for increased visibility, credibility and brand awareness. Companies such as Dell and Southwest airlines also use Social Media for actual sales.

As a Social Media Specialist, I am excited to see the  paradigm shift over to the conscious business model in the marketing world. The world is now ready for the shift to relationship marketing.

Do you want to leverage Social Media to market your products and services online but struggle with finding the time? I know you have heard the statement “Content is King Online” but does it sometimes seem like a daunting task to constantly produce all the content you need to keep your brand in front of the people in your target market?

Content creation can seem like the biggest stumbling block when you first start out with Social Media Marketing. There is so much to do when you are an entrepreneur and run your own business and very often writing your blog and posting on the social networks falls to the bottom of your to-do list.

But you need visibility for your business to grow and prosper and Social Media is one of the most effect ways to increase your online visibility. Because this is so important for your success, I would like to share my EASY Content Creation Repurposing Strategy with you.

Don’t forget you want your content out on the Internet in as many different formats as possible because each person has a different preference for how they like to receive it. Some people like to read, some like to listen and some prefer to watch videos so you want to make your content accessible in several ways.

Before you begin this strategy you will need accounts in the following places:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• YouTube
• Hootsuite – Application to manage your Social Networks
• Ezinearticles – Article Marketing Site
• Ideamarketers – Article Marketing Site

Step 1 Write a 500-750 Word Article – This article should contain your main keywords in the title, body and resource box.

Step 2 Submit the Article to Ezinearticles – The resource box should send people to your blog or some other page where they can enter your marketing funnel.

Step 3 Set up Ezinearticles to automatically Tweet whenever your article is published. You do this from the Social Media Tab in the author dashboard. You will only need to do this once and then it will happen automatically every time you have an article published.

Step 4 Use Hootsuite to Announce Your Article Everywhere. When your article is published use Hootsuite to schedule 3-4 more Tweets announcing the article at different times of the day. Also announce on Facebook and Linkedin.

Step 5 Tweet Main Points of Article With Link. When your article is published use Hootsuite to schedule Tweets which summarize the main points of each paragraph of your article along with the link to read the full article. If you put the points in the form of a question they will raise curiosity and you will get more click throughs to read it.

Step 6 Use the Article to Create 2-3 Blog Posts. Create a series of blog posts and post them every few days. If you use WordPress you can even schedule the posts to be released automatically.

Step 7 Set Up Your Blog to Tweet Posts Automatically. You can use the plugin Twitter Tools to automatically Tweet each blog post and never need to do it manually again.

Step 8 Announce the Blog posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. Don’t forget to involve your reader and ask them to share and leave comments.

Would you like help managing your Social Media Marketing? Check out our EASY Social Media Management Packages

If you found this strategy useful please click the Tweetmeme or Like button to share on your Social Networks. I would also appreciate any comments.

How to Save Time with Your Social Media Marketing Plan – Part 2

In part one I listed many ways to automate your main Social Media Marketing sites so you have more time to spend on the most important parts of Social Media which are developing relationships with people in your target market. Todays post lists many other Social Media sites that allow you to aggregate your information to a central site or that allow you to syndicate your content across multiple channels.

I have also included some sites to join so that your profile information shows up consistently across the Internet. All of these sites are a great way to increase your visibility online with the minimum amount of time.

Ezinearticles

• You can enable automatic Tweets for every article that you publish in Ezinearticles.
• You can also connect your WordPress.org blog to create an article from every blog post.
• Make sure to keep your biography information current and add the links to all your Social Media sites.

Posterious.com

You can email a post to your Posterious account and it will update all the social networks you have enabled such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. It is also a great way to add pictures from your smart phone to your social networks.

Amplify.com

Amplify allows you to copy parts of another peoples blog posts and then post it on your own Amplify Blog. You can highlight all the most important parts of the post and even add your comments. It then pushes that content out to all the sites you have previously enabled.

Ping.fm

Ping.fm allows you to schedule updates and posts across all the Social Media Networks that you register with them.

A complete Social Media Marketing Plan can take time. Do you need help with strategies for automating or implementation a successful Social Media Marketing Plan? Check out my NEW “DO IT FOR YOU” Social Media Marketing Packages

How to Save Time with Your Social Media Marketing Plan – Part 1

Social Media Marketing is taking the world by the storm and studies show it is becoming one of the best ways to market your products and services online. This is because it is based on the principle of Word of Mouth Marketing. Statistics show that people prefer to do business with other people they know like and trust and Social Media allows you the opportunity to build hose kinds of relationships with people in your target market.

The only real downside of Social Media Marketing is it can take a lot of time. First you need to set up your accounts in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and You Tube. Then here are some tips on how to automate as much as possible in your marketing plan so you can focus your time on the most important parts of a successful plan which are conversations, engagement and building relationships.

Twitter

• Automatically send a Tweet when you post to your WordPress blog using the pluggin Twitter Tools
• Automatically follow back everyone who follows you using http://SocialToo.com or http://Socialoomph.com
• Use #in to automatically post to Linkedin from Twitter
• Use #fb to automatically post tp Facebook from Twitter
• Use Ping.fm to syndicate updates across many different social networks
• You can automatically add your Tweets to Facebook using facebook.com/twitter – You need to be careful with this one though. If you Tweet a lot it will fill up your steam with too many weird looking updates and this may annoy your friends.
• Automatically follow back everyone who follows you
• Automatically send a welcome Direct Message to everyone who follows you using http://socialoomph.com. Be careful this message is not a sales type message or it will annoy your new peeps. It should be something useful and relationship building.

Facebook

• Pull your Blog posts (or any blog posts of your choice) into your Fanpage stream using the Networked Blogs App
• Pull your blog or any RSS feed into your  stream using the Notes App
• Connect Twitter to your Facebook account using facebook.com/twitter

LinkedIn

• Import your Blog RSS feed to your profile page
• Connect your Twitter account so your most recent tweets show up on your profile page
• add the Amazone.com app to pull the books you read and review into your profile page

YouTube

• Make sure you allow embedding in your settings so people can grab the code to your videos and put them on their sites
• Make sure your videos are set to public not private
• Make sure you allow comments so you encourage conversations about your videos
• Make sure you allow notifications so there is a Tweet generated automatically every time you upload a new idea, subscribe to another channel or comment on another video

Do you need help managing your Social Media Marketing plan? If so you can check out my “Do It For You” Social Marketing Solutions.

Here are 3 power Twitter Tools to help with your Social Media Marketing plan.

The first tool is Twaitter http://www.twaitter.com

Twaitter (soon changing their name to Gremln) allows you to schedule the same Tweets on a reoccurring basis. While there are many other tools out there that do the same thing this is the first one that is a free application.

The next tool is Tweetchat. http://tweetchat.com

Tweetchat allows you to follow the conversation around a specific hashtag in real time. Let say you find a hashtag that people in your target market are tweeting, then you can go to Tweetchat and follow the conversation in real time and click on each of the different people and decide if you want to follow the.

Finally there is Blastfollow http://www.blastfollow.com/

Blastfollow allows you to follow everyone who is tweeting  a certain hashtag in one click. For example lets say you realize that everyone who tweets #AESauthor is potentially in your target market. Then you can follow all of them with one click using this tool.

I invite you to check out these 3 Twitter Tools and let me know by commenting below which ones you find useful for your business.