Preview What’s In The Pipeline, Then YOU Pick

For the first time ever, I am ahead on my typical 2 blog posts per week. I have five all written and ready to publish, but I like them all and can’t decide.

In another first, we are going to let our readers and Facebook community decide which post will publish on Monday morning.

Visit the Bundle Post Facebook page and vote for the one you’d like to see. Of course only votes from those who have liked the page will be considered. (see what I did there?) :-)

On the fanpage, we will list the 5 blog posts to choose from. Comment and name the title of the one you want to read on Monday and the most votes for a specific title wins. Isn’t it nice to have a choice?

CLICK HERE to vote now!

By Robert Caruso
@fondalo
http://fondalo.com
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post

Google+Google

The Importance Of Posting Content Over Just RT’ing Content

Content is the starting point of everything within the social graph. Your social media marketing program should be centered around a strategy of content posting, sharing and creation as an integral component. As I have stated previously, “content leads to conversations”. Social media content is the match that lights the conversations that help you become effective, but just any content doesn’t work. In fact you must understand the different types and be effective with them all.

There are three basic types of posts within social media:

1) Your Content – Something you/your company wrote or created

2) Posted Content – Something you found online and post to your feeds

3) Shared Content – Retweeting and/or Sharing other people’s posts

Too often I find smaller brands and individual social media marketers that are incredible at sharing Facebook content posts or Retweeting on Twitter, but what they share is often targeted to their peers, or isn’t relevant and interesting to their intended audience. What’s worse is that upon reviewing their streams, it is difficult to find something they have posted and not just shared from someone else. This is less than effective for a few reasons:

1) What are you known for?

2) What are you doing to provide value?

We have found that having a consistent daily flow of relevant, valuable content for your intended audience is the single best thing you can do to get conversations started. Doing this on a consistent basis helps you be known for something or better yet, a few things. Your audience will get accustomed to the relevant content they can find in your streams at any given time and will not just see it when it passes through their stream, but will actually seek you out to get it.

“It’s hard to get conversations started without relevant content” #quote @fondalo

Like any relationship, on or offline, value must be at the core. Simply sharing or retweeting content to your community is lazy and ineffective. A strategy, proper resources and time must be put into sourcing relevant content for your audience, as well as creating content they will find valuable.

Before anyone thinks I am proposing to not share or retweet, think again. That too is important, but needs to be at measured levels that allow YOUR content posting and creation strategy to have its own voice.

Here are some tips for being effective with your posts:

1) Know your audience – What are they interested in?

2) Consistency is key – Everyday, all day, have relevant content in your feeds.

3) Be known for something – When your community thinks of you, your posts should have created a description of you or your brand in their mind.

Go forth and post relevant, valuable content!

Robert M. Caruso
@fondalo
http://fondalo.com
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post

Hootsuite’s No Cost Hootlet App – Share Content In Seconds

As a social media software company ourselves, we continually look for applications that improve efficiency and effectiveness. We are also avid users of Hootsuite, given our technology integrates with their platform. I was going through Hootsuite the other day and came across the link to the Hootlet app.

The Hootlet browser plugin app, let’s you easily schedule and share content and pages you come across all day while on the web and social media sites. Added as a bookmark to your browser, you simply click when you are on a page you want to share and the app automatically opens an interface similar to the Hootsuite app with all of your social accounts. You can share to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare and any other social network you have setup in Hootsuite directly from any page. The post is ready to send now, or easily scheduled. The best part is that it is free!

Now, I am not a big user of browser plugins or apps and our Bundle Post software manages all of our regular daily social media content sharing across the day, but the Hootlet app makes sharing additional stories or articles extremely fast and easy!

Here’s a quick video by Hootsuite to show setup and how it works.

Since we are heavy Pro users of Hootsuite and utilize the integrated Bundle Post technology for content management, aggregation, hashtagging and scheduling based on our content strategy, we have found the Hootlet to be an exceptional Free addition to our daily content sharing and scheduling and think you will to. It is worth the look for additional ease of use and punch to your social media content strategy!

Here are additional details on installing it in your browser.

Robert M. Caruso
@fondalo
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post