My work with the following individuals and organization spans a wide range of services – from social media training and coaching, to blog design and content development, to online personal branding and content marketing. Some engagements have been modest, while others involved more significant time and resources. In all cases, I feel I’ve received as much value as I’ve (hopefully) delivered.

So, here is a list of mostly local, Edmonton-based clients that I have the pleasure of working with:

Chris LaBossiere - Principal of Yardstick Software and founding member of the Aberta Party, Chris tweeted one night that he was looking for help migrating his personal blog to WordPress. I responded and together we re-launched Chris’s personal blog – chrislabossiere.com – on a WordPress platform. Chris is an exceptionally accomplished entrepreneur and tirelessly committed to building a future for the province of Alberta. And he’s a heck of a guy, to boot. I would do almost anything he asked of me. (Oops, was that my outside voice?) Follow Chris on Twitter – it’ll be well worth a few minutes each day from your short attention span.

Jessie Radies – Jessie is the co-owner of the Blue Pear Restaurant in Edmonton and founder of Live Local Alberta. She has spearheaded a movement among local businesses and food producers in Alberta toward strengthening local economies and food systems. She is part of a leading edge group of leaders across North America who are rebuilding local economic infrastructure within communities. Her passion and commitment are inspiring. Jessie tweets actively and is an occasional blogger at jessieradies.ca when she’s not running a restaurant, a non-profit organization and changing the way we think about local economies.

Jennifer Fisk – Jennifer is a public relations professional (Freestone Communications) with considerable skills and experience in media relations and crisis management. Also a tireless community builder, she is active on numerous non-profit boards throughout the city of Edmonton and is a strong supporter of the local culinary scene. Jennifer tweets regularly and maintains an insightful and beautifully written blog at actuallyhappening.ca.

Randy Boissonnault - I met Randy for the first time one morning. By that afternoon, we’d had our second meeting and were well on our way to working together. That’s how Randy rolls – there’s no time to waste. Never a better time than now. Successful entrepreneur and trusted strategic advisor (Xennex), Randy combines a razor-sharp mind with a boundless energy to get things done. Equally passionate about helping, Randy is an active Rotarian and founder of Literacy Without Borders. What’s the point of building a successful business if it isn’t facilitating positive development in its clients, employees and the community at large. Randy tweets and maintains a compelling blog at randyb.ca.

Travis Blake – Travis has an entrepreneurial and transformative vision to save the planet through sustainable deconstruction and demolition (R3Demo.com). Where others see construction waste, he sees opportunity – through reclamation, recycling, and reuse – to lighten our ecological footprint and build a business offering unique value in an old-fashioned sector. Travis tweets, but he’s a networking superhero and he does it the good old-fashioned way – face to face. If you’re planning on taking down a building somewhere in Alberta, you really ought to call him.

Peter Silverstone – Peter is a physician with a very inquisitive mind. He couldn’t understand why oil companies had to make so much of an ecological mess producing oil from the tar sands. So he studied it and found out, lo and behold, they didn’t. World’s Greenest Oil was the result, a compelling treatise explaining how Alberta could be producing the cleanest oil on the planet. Peter tweets and blogs about green oil and national/global politics surrounding this issue.

Bruce Winter – Following a successful career as an on-air sports broadcaster, Bruce started a sports entertainment production company (Aquila) and became a fixture in the Edmonton sports community. But he has other passions as well. Bruce wants to leave this world – and his community – in better shape than how he found it. He is an avid supporter of technological innovation and energy efficiency, in particular. Bruce tweets and currently blogs at Posterous (but is working on a new blog site).

Julie Hamilton – Julie never quite imagined she’d be where she is today. She’s the mother of a Canadian Forces soldier who’s served in Afganistan. And she’s been so moved by this experience that she has also taken on the role of executive director of Valour Place – a respite home for injured soldiers. Thing is, Valour Place doesn’t exist yet. But Julie and the organization’s many supporters are building it. Julie is beginning to tweet and maintains a blog called showyourvalour.ca. Visit the blog and show yours.

Brad Smoliak – Co-founder of Hardware Grill and Alberta House head chef for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, Brad knows his way around a kitchen. He currently consults as a research chef, crafting and testing tasty concoctions that will one day show up in your supermarket. Brad loves cooking and is a master griller of flesh (he has a successful BBQ cookbook and a rub to die for). Brad is thinking about starting to tweet and blogs at bradsmoliakcooks.ca.

When people ask me why I enjoy living and working in Edmonton, I tell them it’s because of the people, because of the community. Thanks for your confidence, folks.

To anyone trying to get into Twitter and understand what it is and how it works, I recommend starting slowly. Walk before you run.

For instance, start with the Twitter client itself. Available on the web and on mobile devices, Twitter.com does a good  job with the basics – following, direct messaging, making lists, and checking who has mentioned you or retweeted your tweets.

However, I’ve found a few limitations:

• for the longest time, retweeting without editing was only permitted, however now you can retweet while quoting the original tweet;
• I find that some mentions and some retweets by others do not show up in the Twitter.com interface and this can be annoying;
• there is no scheduling function for post-dating tweets.

These limitations  prompted me to look at the layer of  clients that sit on top of Twitter and are used for sending and receiving tweets with greater flexibility. Of these, I’ve tried and used the following:

• Hootsuite is the client I like the most because it has a clean interface, allows retweeting with easy editing, permits post-dating tweets and supports tweeting from multiple handles.
• TweetDeck is also nice and can do all that Hootsuite can and a few other things. There is also a cool desktop version that has real-time notification like email clients. While this was initially a welcome novelty, I quickly found that Twitter monopolized my time and even though I could customize the notifications (or turn them right off) I just returned to Hootsuite.
• CoTweet is also a nice interface and supports all of the above.

All of the above clients have free mobile app versions that take only a bit of time to learn how to use. What invariably happens is I end of using multiple tools because each one has a strength that sets it apart from the others. This is not uncommon among Twitter users.

However, the tool that has been rocking my tweeting world recently is Buffer. A beautifully crafted user interface, Buffer essentially enables me to curate my content stream during fixed times of the day or night and queue my content stream. The free version of Buffer allows me to load up to 10 tweets which can be easily customized to be sent at intervals of my choosing.

Twitter automation is a bit of touchy issue out there because there is an increasing amount of spam and bot traffic. I was swayed by data presented recently by Jason Falls and Eric Boggs in Data Driven Social Media in which they showed that automating feeds produced more traffic, but not necessarily conversions. Generating traffic and responses is very important for me, so I have all my Twitter clients notifying me on my mobile device and by email so that I can respond in a timely manner when a person reads something they find interesting and responds. This response time is key to engaging and ultimately converting the respondent.

Overall, Buffer is making me more efficient with my time and enabling me to share more quality information more frequently and across a wider time frame to capture more users’s attention. You can even share directly from Google Reader – which I use for curating my RSS blog feeds – making Buffer even more time-effective.

I’ve also been experimenting a bit with Triberr which also employs a combination of human curation coupled with automation to distribute tweets, but is geared more to the blogging platform at this time.

I am interested to hear about any tools or techniques that you are using to improve the efficiency and quality of your online curation efforts. Please let me know what’s working for you.

1. I would strongly recommend that you use WordPress for your web site and blog. It can easily function in an integrated way as a blog and a traditional web site, so that’s all you need. And here are 8 more huge reasons why WordPress is a great choice.

2. There are many professional WordPress theme designers who are offering top-notch designs that can be customized to your needs very cost-effectively. For example, see WooThemes, Obox, Elegant Themes, BizzArtic and ThemeForest, just to name a few.

3. As for hosting, I like to own my own domain and host it myself, rather than use WordPress.com. Go Daddy is a good host for a WordPress site, but there are many other excellent options. Basic hosting is inexpensive. However, there are many specialized service providers who bundle basic web/blog site hosting with other “soft” services and charge considerable monthly hosting fees. Buyer beware. Make sure the services and value fit with your needs.

4. Finally, everything I’ve described above – that’s the easy part. The hard part is feeding relevant content onto your blog on a regular basis, networking that content and building key relationships with other online influencers, customers and prospects. This is where the work starts and when investment of your time and resources really pays off. Here are some excellent suggestions for generating social content that gets clicked.

There you go: simple as 1,2, 3.

Chiefly among those barriers are the following two:

• Knowledge – How does it work? What am I supposed to write about? How do I promote myself? (And if you’re a regulated professional, you might be wondering: What am I allowed to say, do, and write?)
• Time – Even if I know what to do, WHEN am I supposed to find time to do it?

This post is about overcoming the second barrier to social media engagement: time.

Unlike other marketing and business development activities, social media is not entirely outsourcable. You need to invest your time in gaining some knowledge and literacy so that YOU can engage and interact online. It’s not about hiring an agency or staff to do everything for you. YOU need to learn how to use the tools and learn how to express your personal brand online. You need to learn enough so that you know what you don’t know and can hire out for those skills you don’t have and truly don’t have time for.

Here are six tips for how you can make more time for social media in your day-to-day business life:

1. Get up an hour earlier in the morning and read some blogs, then comment on some posts. Getting active early in the day has lots of advantages.

2. Skip reading the newspaper and follow your primary news sources via Twitter. Read the feed while you’re eating breakfast or working out in the morning.

3. Download popular social media mobile apps and use them on the fly – when you’re commuting, when you’re waiting in line, when you’re getting a mid-morning coffee. If you’re discrete you can even use these apps when you’re standing on the sidelines watching your kid play soccer in the early evening. (When your kid is on the sidelines resting, of course.)

4. Re-evaluate your commitment to golf. Unless you’re doing it entirely on personal time, the 6-8 hours of time you spend on each round represents a considerable investment of time. Be honest with yourself: is that relationship really worth that investment of time – or do you just LOVE playing golf?

5. While you’re at it, let’s look at some of your other networking activities: business lunches and breakfasts, conferences, etc. I’m not suggesting you drop everything, but that you continuously evaluate the return you are getting from each of those time investments.

6. Get your support team doing your social media legwork. For instance, have them find and suggest articles you should be reading and sharing. Encourage your staff to be your eyes and ears online. Work on blog articles together – you draft something and they finish it, or vice versa.

So, now that the time barrier is gone, the bigger question remains: How should YOU be using social media in your business?

My presentation focused on the new culture of social media networks and offered some key insights and strategies for advisors wishing to engage in this space. Being a long-term relationship person myself, I focused on how to build trust online (and why you want to) as well as authentic personal branding and the rise of the influence economy.

These concepts apply to virtually any professional – not just financial advisors – whose business is based on their specialized subject matter knowledge, a reputation for being trustworthy and just doing good work.

Always interested in feedback.

In this post, I will build on Zall’s advice and offer some clarification from my perspective on how to implement it. To do so, I will borrow his four pillars framework and trust he will recognize that my imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Knowing the Tools

The rapid evolution of social media tools, strategy and etiquette necessitates a significant learning curve that can challenge even the most seasoned social media guru.  It is true that LinkedIn offers a safe and effective starting point for engaging in social media and LinkedIn Groups open up opportunities to establish one’s subject matter expertise and make valuable connections. But what about the meteorically popular site Quora which similarly offers opportunities to demonstrate knowledge through questions and answers? Even if you don’t actively engage on Quora, it should not be ignored.

Twitter is a curious little game-changer of a tool whose use is constantly evolving. While larger media outlets and information hubs tend use it to stream content to their followers, individuals are using it more interactively and socially – to broaden networks, meet new people and extend their social interactions with existing contacts. Twitter can be highly personable and social; if used properly, it can open many new doors without even a mention of business subject matter at all.

And these are only a handful of the many social media tools that are available and potentially useful for financial advisors. Point being – take advantage of this cautious period to study these tools and understand them. When the flag drops and the race is on, this knowledge will serve you well.

Knowing the Rules

Since the regulatory rules and guidances surrounding social media lag far behind the tools themselves, Zall shrewdly cautions the wise advisor to “leave the heavy stuff for a more intimate and compliant setting.” In other words, stick to corporate email, telephone and face-to-face meetings for doing whatever you do to help clients make decisions.

So what should you be using social media for? Use social media for developing some of the other characteristics that are important factors in trust relationships. Knowledge of your field. Commitment to common causes. Personality. And herein lies the power of social media. It is precisely in developing your online personality – your personal brand, if you will – that you can really leverage social media while remaining cautious.

In a post entitled A micro-manifesto on personal branding for practice professionals, I lay out some key factors and social media technologies that are enabling advisors to develop and extend business relationships like never before. The advisory business relies heavily on relationships – your client is buying your knowledge, your reputation and your commitment. The personal becomes professional. By connecting through social media and extending your social interactions and personal brand effectively through technology, you are setting the groundwork for your professional success.

Having said all of this, don’t fly without a parachute. Sign up for a social media archiving service like Arkovi or Socialware just so you have an archived record of your online activities should you require it to demonstrate compliance.

Knowing your Audience

Social media is but another stage in the evolution of the technological age we are living in. As our relationships become more technologically mediated, knowledge of and comfort with these technological tools becomes a requirement of social engagement.

Even if the majority of your clients aren’t clamouring today for social media interactions, they are increasingly exposed to and aware of information and competing offerings that come to them through social media channels. And we’re not just talking about competing advice; alternatives come in the form of engaging investment information and ideas, new business models for investment management promising better results, as well as dynamic new online personalities vying for your clients’ and prospects’ business. Can you afford to be invisible in that discussion?

HNW investors are using online tools to gather information, assess offerings and get advice on investment decisions. Just as relevantly, you could be using social media technology to research potential/existing clients and development opportunities to build/deepen your relationship with them.

Knowledge of Self

There is a social media opportunity out there that is uniquely yours – it depends on you, your personality and your ability to tell a compelling story, as Zall so insightfully articulates.

Not everyone is equally gifted in this regard. Some are introverts, preferring face-to-face meetings and lots of solitary number crunching. Some are too busy with traditional business development activities (breakfasts, lunches, dinners, golf) that they can barely find time for their personal lives, let alone a steep social media learning curve. Others have achieved success, grown accustomed to its comforts and have no desire to pursue the leading edge.

So, who is the perfect candidate for engaging in social media?

1. You are a communicator. You love people. You are a natural storyteller and a master of business relationships.
2. You are not afraid to try new technologies. In fact, you find it thrilling to learn how to do something new with your smart phone or iPad.
3. You want to be ahead of the pack and you’re willing to do the work to get there.

If this sounds like you or someone you aspire to be, the emerging world of social media communications is full of opportunities. Step up and seize one.

Social media use and habits evolve over time. Tools come and go and are upgraded and enhanced. And our awareness of tools and strategies and what works best for each of us is constantly evolving depending on many factors.

For instance, I started using LinkedIn to simply connect with business connections and people I met. Then, I found myself using the status update function regularly. Over time, I found status updates on LinkedIn were not getting noticed by my contacts so I switched to using the #in hashtag on selected Twitter posts to update my LinkedIn status. More efficient for me.

Similarly with a tool like Twitter. I started following people and tweeting irregularly. I found the conversational use of Twitter perplexing and annoying. Then I started meeting people via Twitter and observing how they’d use Twitter to give me a “shout out” and I started trying that approach as well. Which was a slippery slope to having a conversation on Twitter. As I posted more frequently, I got more followers. Sometimes I try reworking tweets to see how different language engenders different responses.

My point is, we are all experimenting with social media, learning on the fly using trial and error. Adapting our use of the tools to the time we have available, our objectives and awareness of what works and what doesn’t and, of course, our own personalities.

My sense is that a guy like Mitch Joel has evolved both his understanding of and his objectives surrounding his use of social media. After all, he’s a best-selling author, writer and columnist, he runs a successful digital agency and he probably has less time and (I’d hazard a guess) less need for the networking and reputation-building opportunities afforded by Twitter. In this context, I understand  how Mitch Joel can see Twitter as a distraction.

And why each of us will constantly be defining our own most optimal use of social media technologies.

The proliferation of social media spaces and tools are changing the business communications landscape and how we market ourselves.  Here are two significant changes:

• Access to our target markets is more direct and less mediated through established media platforms with every passing day. That is not to say that traditional media platforms are not important, but rather that you should use these channels to build your own direct channels to your clients and prospects.
• Success in social media is measured in terms of influence – number of followers, reach, size of network, etc. – a concept that has evolved out of the mass media notion of celebrity. Yet, at the same time, social media tools allow you define communities of interest on a smaller scale, thereby lowering the bar for what constitutes celebrity or influence.

In other words, there are more tools available than ever before to build and extend relationships. And those relationships can have a greater impact on your business success than ever before.

Are you a practice professional?

A practice professional is a broad category of business person whose success is built on three main factors:

• subject matter knowledge and expertise;
• trust and reputation for good work; and
• a wide social network.

Practice professionals are an important and growing segment of the economy. They include traditional professionals such as lawyers, financial advisors and accountants. Broadly speaking, though, this category also encompasses business consultants of all kinds (management, marketing, strategy, real estate, etc.), creative freelancers (writers, directors, actors, musicians, etc.), business owners and others. All of these kinds of practice professionals share some common characteristics:

• they are always selling their next piece of work;
• they are directly or very closely involved in service delivery and satisfaction of their client’s needs;
• they often develop personal friendships with many of their best clients.

Personal branding as a business strategy

Over a decade ago, management guru Tom Peters wrote about how the internet was empowering the individual to brand themselves and compete with the mega-brand behemoths. Well, it’s taken some time, but the age of social media has arrived and it is delivering on that vision.

In this new age of “you branding”, there are some new realities that are worth noting. For instance, being a professional used to mean keeping the different parts of your life separate. At work, you’d put on your game face. At home, you’d be the family guy. When out drinking beer with your friends,  you’d be one of the guys.  This is anathema in the age of social media. Now, you are required to be ONE person and share different aspects of your personality – a business expert and leader, a loving parent, a person with interests and causes outside of work. (Or perhaps you are a renegade, a player, a troublemaker – whatever your brand is, you just have to work it.)  It is precisely through sharing your personality that people will be attracted to you.

Corporate entities (television stations, newspapers, magazine publishers) used to provide you with opportunities and platforms to build a client base, an audience or a readership. In the age of social media, your own personal brand identity is the key to your professional success. The relationship to your audience – your market – is in the process of being disintermediated.  By developing a strong personal brand, you will be able to attract and build an audience and, in an ironic reversal of roles, the attention of the very corporate entities who will now be interested in you because of your following and influence. This is a fundamental paradigm shift in which individual centres of influence are emerging as the dominant building blocks of the economy.

Out of the social and cultural revolutions of the late twentieth century came the slogan “the personal is political” which was used by some feminists to stress the importance of women’s consciousness-raising groups in forging awareness and connections between women – both seen as prerequisites to social change.

Today, the personal is becoming professional. By connecting through social media and learning how to extend your social interactions and personal brand through technology, you are setting the groundwork for professional success in this century.

So stop worrying what your business should be doing with social media and focus on YOU. Figure out what you should be doing and the rest will fall into place.

Almost 15 years later, Tom Peters’ call to action is more relevant than ever before.  Social media tools coupled with wireless mobile technologies are revolutionizing our communications landscape. And it’s changing how we market and advertise our businesses, as well as how we engage, support and retain our customers.

Business has always been about relationships and it is no less so today. What is changing profoundly today is how and where we conduct those relationships.

Whether working as individuals or as collections of individuals in small firms, practice professionals stand to benefit (or lose) the most from the changes being wrought by social media. And by practice professionals, I mean financial advisors and planners, insurance brokers, consultants, lawyers, doctors, therapists, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, etc. The businesses built around each of these professionals is built on the same basic foundations:

• demonstrate subject-matter expertise;
• build a reputation for trustworthiness and good work; and
• develop a social network.

It is precisely in these areas that social media tools shine.

Am I advocating that every business should have a blog and a Twitter account and Facebook page? No.

What I’m saying is that every one of the individuals listed above should have a personal social media strategy. Practice professionals should be branding themselves and using social media to articulate and embody those brand identities.

If you’re not sure exactly what I mean, here are a few examples:

• A high net-worth partner in a successful insurance firm should be using social media to connect with his peers in other areas of business about matters of common interest to the successful business owner. The relationships that result from these engagements will naturally translate into business opportunities.
• The sales manager of a car dealership should be using social media to connect with community leaders and support community causes, thereby amplifying his personal influence and building awareness and good faith within the community around his corporate brand.
• A communications consultant should be using her effective writing skills to build a following around a personal blog in which she shares both professional insights and personal interests. The more intimate connections that flow from this type of personal engagement with social media will help her retain clients and attract new ones.

For a wide range of small business owners, a personal social media strategy could be the most important marketing initiative your business undertakes in 2011.

This presentation hits the jackpot! If you are looking for an overview of what social media might mean to your business, here’s your presentation.