Today I stumbled on the widget creation tool in Hootsuite that allows you to create an embeddable widget on your website or blog.

Here is how it works.. Just click the embed button on any column

Then click “Grab Code” and paste it in your sidebar or website!

It’s pretty easy – got any questions? Leave a comment or jump into the forums!

P.S. Hootsuite was Doug’s tool of the week on our internet business podcast

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Today we installed the Meebo Bar WordPress Plugin on this site.

If you look at the screenshot below you’ll see it adds a “bar” along the bottom with several social and sharing functions…

Hovering the “Share Page” button on the bar allows visitors to your site to quickly share the page…

We also setup the ability for visitors to ask us questions when they are on the site. If you are reading something and have a question about it – just ask us! We’ll try to get back to you right away.

We also added the RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon buttons using the easy configuration tool provided by Meebo. The RSS button pulls the latest from our RSS feed. The Twitter button pulls our latest tweets. The Facebook Button shows off our fan page widget. And the StumbleUpon button lets you share it to the SU network.

If you have any questions about the Meebo bar and integrating it into your website, jump into our forums or leave us a comment here.

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We use TweetMeme (click the retweet button to the right) to track Twitter content with basic analytics such as number of clicks.

Or – you could take it to the next level with TweetMeme Analytics…

Why would you need to know more than clicks? Here’s what TweetMeme analytics offers:

• Monitor the performance of the content on your blog/website.
• Know how far your content has spread virally through Twitter.
• Find out which user demographics were interested in your content.
• Find influential users and click sources for your content.

Looking for Twitter analytics? Here it is.

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In our second episode of the Web Strategy Workshop podcast we want to show you how to connect Facebook to Twitter on your Facebook Pages.

Show Links

• Facebook Announcement – Publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages
• Link to get started publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages
• Join th Web Strategy Workshop Facebook Page
• Follow Us On Twitter
• Subscribe to our Web Strategy Podcast on iTunes

If you have any questions on posting to Twitter from your Facebook Page – let us know in the comments or join in on the forum discussion!

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Earlier today we wrote about the TweetMeme ReTweet Plugin For WordPress. After this post we alerted by one of our readers of the BackType ReTweet plugin for WordPress – after which we promptly switched to.

Why? There are several reasons we switched to BackType’s TweetCount plugin.

1. Uses bit.ly API for click tracking (TweetMeme uses bit.ly but not the API)
2. It uses custom Google Analytics tracking parameters so you can measure click-thrus from Google Analytics
3. The button is customizable – notice how it matches our site now? Yay!

What do you think? Do you have any questions on how to integrate Twitter with WordPress?

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The strategy is simple and something that we often preach to our clients – use social media not as a marketing bullhorn but as a value added experience for your community.

In this video Wil Reynolds talks about using Twitter for link building. My favorite point was…

Use Twitter to help people solve their problems in a real way

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So you’ve been working hard on the internet marketing plan for your web strategy but have you stepped back to look at it from the user’s perspective? Are you a spammer? Online marketing is very community focused and it takes time to build a trusting relationship. You need to seriously reflect on your internet marketing campaign to avoid losing that trust. Last Friday at a Lunch & Learn session my company co-sponsors, our speaker Brett Trout said “Reputation takes a long time to build and a second to diminish” in regards to business ethics. The same idea holds true with a community building and internet marketing strategy.

Here are two examples of mistakes I’ve made where I developed what I thought were value-added marketing campaigns – which turned out to be the opposite.

In an effort to increase email subscribers on GetANewBrowser.com I implemented a modal popup feature of aWeber. I thought this was a value-add feature that provided a call to action to some extra content I was giving out. Even though this subscriber drive was a resounding success – it frustrated users. So I turned it off. Conversions went way down, but my readers are much happier.

The second example I want to share is the practice of auto direct messages on Twitter. Before I switched it – you would get an auto direct message whenever you followed @WebStrategyShop or @abrudtkuhl on Twitter. This means I sent you something like the following message “Hey thanks for following me have you checked out my Internet Business Podcast at ManagingTheEdge.com?” In one instance Aaron Houssian sent me a direct message follow up alerting me to my spammer behavior. At that point I realized my marketing campaign was indeed spamming people and they did not appreciate it. So, after much debate, I turned it off.

In both instances my community alerted me to the issue at hand and, thankfully, stuck with me after I addressed the issue transparently and followed through with their requests. This brings up another lesson – you need to listen to your community. Not only can you crowd source ideas from them they will give you immediate feedback if they feel you are spamming them.

If you are interested in hearing more discussion on this topic – we covered it in the latest episode of our internet business podcast Managing The Edge.

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So you have a business, a blog, and a Twitter account… Now what? One of the first recommendations we give to our web strategy clients is to find their community and engage them in value-added conversation.

The first rule in Social Media Marketing is to add value to your community and NEVER use it as a marketing soapbox. As an example, do not broadcast “Check out our awesome widget! Buy it today!” on Twitter. This is not adding value to your community – it is simply creating noise and gives your community the perception that you are here to use them. Don’t use them, engage them.

But this assumes that you have found your community… Here are 5 steps to help you find your social communities.

1. Use Twitter Search

Use Twitter’s search to find people talking about the topics which interest you or are related to your company and product. As an example we seek out people who are talking about web strategy – so we can learn more and be there as a resource for beginners. In this instance, we have subscribed to “web strategy” on Twitter Search.

2. Use Twellow

Twellow is often referred to as “Twitter Yellowpages”. Basically it helps you find people based on their interest, business, expertise, etc. Let’s say you have an online store that sells knitting supplies. If you search for “knitting” on Twellow you will find all the people that knit or are interested in knitting. Following them on Twitter will likely give you an idea of what kind of products they are looking for and where they are currently getting their supplies…

3. Use Google Blogsearch

Google Blogsearch does exactly what it says – searches blogs. It is essential to identify topical bloggers in your niche when you seek out your community. Not only will they give you ideas and thoughts on your own business – it gives you an opportunity to have a conversation in the comments on focused topics of which you are an expert in.

4. Use SocialMention

SocialMention is a tool that scours the “social web” for topics.  It searches blogs, microblogs, comments, Twitter, bookmark sites, FriendFeed, etc, etc. Again – if you are looking for the knitting community online, simply search “knitting” and you can track the conversation across all social media outposts.

5. Use BackType

BackType is a service that searches comments left on blogs.. This is a great way to find people that are leaving a lot of comments on your topic and where they are commenting at. If you want to find the top commenter on “knitting” posts, it’s an easy search. Finding these commenters gives you the ability to join the conversation around your niche by targeting some top commenters.

REMEMBER: Don’t use social media as a marketing blowhorn – it will come back to haunt you.

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Having the right tools in your toolbox is a great way to start a new project. This is the same for your web strategy. Sure you need to learn how to use them – which we’ll get to later. But for now, arm yourself with these killer web tools that will help you begin your web strategy quest.

1. Firefox

Firefox is the ultimate tool for running an internet business. There are dozens of plugins that create the ultimate productivity environment. We’ll cover many of these plugins later, but for now.. just download it and start using it. You won’t regret it.

2. WordPress

WordPress the ultimate platform to run your website and we HIGHLY recommend using it. It’s flexible, scalable, and extremely easy to use. With a vast community of plugins and themes its hard to find a better blog and content management system platform.

3. Google Analytics

You will want Google Analytics installed on your website for many reasons we’ll cover later. For now, just slap it in using the WordPress plugin or embed the code on your website. The analytics data will be used to hone your website for your content marketing and internet marketing strategies.

4. Google Reader

Google Reader is the ultimate tool for information gathering – whether it’s automated research or staying up to date with industry information. Once we’re done with you it will be a tool you use daily for listening, reading, and sharing.

5. Twitter / TweetDeck

Twitter is a multi-purpose tool that allows you to build community, track topics, and have great discussions. We recommend getting a Twitter account, subscribing to some relevant topics, and finding people similar to you. We also recommend TweetDeck to help manage all of this. More on using Twitter for web strategy coming in later posts. And once you signup, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!

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