Social media is all about sharing, and the ability to share across sites (such as posting your tweets to Facebook and LinkedIn by including a simple tag) is especially useful, not to mention time-saving. Now that Google+ is here, users need a simple way to share it with Twitter and Facebook, too.

Information in this post gathered in association with a Delaware auto accident attorney

Unfortunately, there’s no official way to do this, but there are some browser extensions that can help. Greg Finn discusses two of them in “How to Post Your Google+ Feed to Facebook and Twitter.”

Publish Sync

This extension is currently only available for Chrome. It allows you to link not only Google+, Facebook and Twitter, but also LinkedIn, Digg and a few other networks. Once you’ve linked your networks, it will show up under your updates box, so you can choose where to share.

It also lets you choose to share selectively. The sharing options that are available within a service, like Google+ circles, are also available when sharing from another service.

SGPlus

This extension works in Firefox and Safari, as well as Chrome, but only from within Google+. While in Google+, you can:

• See your Facebook and Twitter streams
• Let Google+ automatically post your updates to Facebook and Twitter
• “Like,” retweet and comment in Facebook and Twitter without ever leaving Google+
• Access Gmail

This means you only need to keep one tab open to manage three social accounts plus Gmail. You can also import Facebook photos directly into Google+.

These tools are certainly useful and can save a lot of time, but as Finn points out, they do require access to all your social networks to work. If you’re concerned about privacy, they may not be for you.

If you’ve been using (or trying to use) Twitter to promote your business, you know how easily it can eat up large chunks of your day. One way to save time and still build a strong Twitter presence is to use a Twitter client to manage and schedule your tweets. This way, you can spend an hour or less on Twitter while still appearing engaged.

Information in this post gathered in association with a Mesa Attorney

Michael Gray explains in “How to Be Involved on Twitter in Less Than an Hour a Day” how he uses the HootSuite™ Social Media Dashboard to engage people who live in or frequently travel to a particular city. His method involves strategic use of lists to avoid information overload.

Twitter lets you create lists, but HootSuite gives you additional tools that make it easier to use your lists. In Gray’s example, he created 10 lists related to living or traveling in the city he was promoting, including things like hotels, restaurants, official municipal accounts, and news.

By scanning his lists, he can easily find information on upcoming events and other relevant information. Combining this information with Google Alerts™ and a local calendar of events allows him to schedule tweets up to a few weeks in advance to talk up those events.

You can use a similar strategy to organize your Twitter streams and related information. You might prefer a different Twitter client, like TweetDeck, for example, but as long as it allows you to organize and scan a variety of lists and schedule tweets in advance, you can replicate this method.

According to Gray, unless you’re running a special event, it only takes 15 to 20 minutes, two or three times a day (in other words, an hour a day or less), to build your Twitter presence.

An active Facebook business page is a fantastic way to grow your brand and connect with current and future customers. But to determine if your marketing efforts are working, you need analytics, just like on your website. That’s where Facebook Insights® can help.

Information in this post gathered in association with a Kentucky auto accident attorney

Facebook Insights offers great data that lets you see which Facebook marketing efforts are producing the best results. Kaila Strong discusses some of the most important data points in “Facebook Insights: 6 Areas You Need to Monitor for Effective Messaging” (found under the Interactions section of the link).

Impressions and feedback trends: Look for patterns in areas like type of content or the time of day that people are more (or less) likely to visit your page and provide feedback.

Likes: Determine if the posts that get the most Likes have anything in common. Is there a difference when you specifically ask for a Like?

Comments: What types of posts are users more or less likely to comment on? Are those comments positive or negative? Do you see a connection between the number of Likes and the number and/or types of comments? Again, look for patterns.

Unsubscribes: People un-Like brands all the time for all kinds of reasons, but if you see a sudden spike in unsubscribes, try to figure out why.

External referrers and new Likes: Get an idea of whether time spent promoting your page on other platforms is paying off. While you can’t see which site sent a specific new fan, you can see which sites were sending visitors around the time you acquired new fans.

Demographics: Understand who your visitors are so you can segment them into groups and target them with specific messages visible only to them.

Use your Facebook Insights analysis to improve your Facebook marketing by doing more of what fans like.

Facebook has left its past as a college networking site far behind and is becoming ever more valuable for businesses. A recent study by U.K.-based Hitwise shows that using Facebook for your business translates into more sales. What business doesn’t want more sales?

A California trucking accident attorney at Otus Law Group has assisted the CaseDetails editorial team in identifying topics of importance to readers of this blog.

As discussed by Greg Finn in Retail Study: 1 Facebook Fan = 20 Visits To Your Website, the study looked at how Facebook increased traffic to retailers’ websites. It evaluated the way Facebook fans increase traffic, as well as how visits to Facebook increase searches for the retailers, regardless of fan status.

Facebook’s monthly traffic is second only to Google in both the U.K. and the U.S., so it shouldn’t be surprising that it influences other online behavior. So what do the data show?

• Top retailers can get an average of 62,000 monthly visits from Facebook, without having any Facebook fans.
• Each new fan increases visits to the brand’s website by 20. Imagine what a few hundred fans can do.
• Those extra visits drive sales. This holds true for both online and offline sales.
• Consumers searched on brand names as much as 54 percent more often after visiting the brands’ Facebook pages.

This Hitwise study was based on data from the largest, most popular U.K. retailers, but there’s no reason to believe it isn’t equally valid for other businesses and other countries. The statistics may vary somewhat based on factors such as industry and business size, but the overall benefits are clear.

These numbers provide a useful starting point to help you quantify social media’s rather elusive ROI and justify time spent creating and maintaining a Facebook presence for your business.

Foursquare enjoys 1000% growth

Foursquare, the mobile app that allows you to “check in” to share your current location and thoughts about it, began in March 2009 and hit 10 million users slightly more than two years later, in June 2011. This impressive feat becomes even more amazing when you realize that it translates into 1,000 percent annual growth.

Foursquare had 100,000 users in August 2009, expanded by 1,000 percent to 1 million users in August 2010, and saw additional 1,000 percent growth by June 2011 to 10 million users. Think about it. That’s one million new users per month.

A CA consumer lawyer Kingsley & Kingsley has assisted the CaseDetails editorial team in identifying topics of importance to readers of this blog.

Rob D. Young discusses Foursquare’s extraordinary success in Foursquare Hits 10 Million Users: Yeah, That’s 1,000% Annual Growth. He points out that a combination of factors account for Foursquare’s massive expansion:

• It’s social
• The smartphone market keeps growing
• It’s easily accessible on tablets as well as phones
• Local businesses like geolocation marketing

Geolocation marketing is effective for businesses of all sizes, but it’s especially valuable for small local businesses. The Foursquare Merchant Platform lets you offer specials to attract new business and retain current customers. And while that 1,000 percent growth rate can’t be sustained forever, it has created a huge user base that’s not likely to go away. Foursquare will be a viable marketing channel for a long time.

It’s also interesting to note that 358 million check-ins have occurred outside the U.S., and U.S. users have checked in from 169 countries. Foursquare is truly a global phenomenon.

If you’re already checking into Foursquare, you know how easy (and addictive) it can be. Harness some of its power to grow your own business. If you haven’t tried it yet, at least learn more about what you can do with the Merchant Platform and how it can help your business.

Are you taking full advantage of Twitter’s ability to help you attract the right clients? If you’re like many people, you may not be quite sure how best to use those 140 characters to say something useful. But as the search engines place more emphasis on social media in search results, now might be a good time to learn.

Personal injury lawyers in Chicago with The Healy Law Firm have assisted the CaseDetails editorial team in identifying topics of importance to readers of this blog.

SEO isn’t just for websites anymore. In fact, it hasn’t been for quite a while. SEO strategies apply equally to all of your activities across the Internet. Incorporating relevant keywords into those activities—including Twitter—is important to help you stand out. Use keywords in:

• Your profile: Twitter may not have started as a professional networking site like LinkedIn, but plenty of professionals are using it as such. Using relevant keywords in your profile will help people looking for your areas of expertise to find you. Google might even use your bio as the description in search results.
• Hashtags: These crosshatch symbols next to keywords help identify the subject of a tweet and help them appear in search results. Create your own tags for your company events or as a branding tool. Use industry tags to add your tweets to broader conversations. Remember, you can use multiple hashtags in one tweet.
• Custom URLs: Some URL shortening services now allow you to add your own custom end to the shortened URL. Use this to add a keyword phrase to the URL you’re sharing.

Kelsey Jones explains these tips and others in more detail in How To Find Hidden SEO Opportunities On Twitter.

Social media for business is still a relatively new space, but it’s not going away, so it is to your advantage to learn it and use it.

What do you Like? Bing knows, and it’s sharing with your friends. Bing told us back in October 2010 that it was integrating Facebook data into its ranking algorithm. In May 2011, it announced that it would be making even more use of that data.

A Mesa attorney with The Law Firm of Paul M. Fischer has assisted the CaseDetails editorial team in identifying topics of importance to readers of this blog.

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling covers the new components Bing is adding to make its search experience even more social in Bing Ups Ante In Social Search, Adds More Facebook “Likes” To Search Results.

In short, Bing plans to customize your search results based on:

• Trusted Friends: Bing will tell you which of your friends like a particular search result. The message will look similar to the one you see in your Facebook News Feed regarding Likes. It will list up to three friends’ names, along with their profile pictures, and add how many other friends also “liked this.”
• Collective IQ: Since you probably don’t have friends who are experts in everything, Bing will use aggregate data about the popularity of particular sites and stories you view.
• Enabling Conversation: Bing wants to let you know which of your friends might be able to help you with your search, so it has enhanced your ability to search your friends’ Facebook profiles.

Bing also offers additional conversation features in Travel and Shopping. Get your friends’ advice about your travel wish list or shopping list, or find out who is familiar with a particular destination so you can ask for advice. Add your advice to their lists.

For better or for worse, Facebook makes it simple to connect and communicate with far-flung family, friends and acquaintances. Now Bing is bringing that conversation into search.

Social media, and Facebook in particular, have become important ingredients in many brands’ marketing mix. They are also also particularly effective tools for connecting with the online Latino community.

In a Clickz article titled “Facebook: The Latino Way” Gustavo Razzetti reports that more than half of Latinos visit Facebook once a week or more often, and they spend more time there than non-Latinos. But for marketers looking to build their online brand with Latinos, it pays to remember that culture and community are especially important to Latinos.

Hispanics, whether foreign-born or U.S.-born, maintain a solid connection to their roots. The most successful marketers tap that sense of community to really connect with the Latino consumer. They also recognize that the Latino community is not homogeneous, and Hispanics on Facebook might be:

• Foreign-born and preferring to consume media in Spanish
• Foreign-born and bilingual
• U.S.-born and bilingual, often preferring their media in English
• U.S.-born, speaking and reading predominantly or exclusively English

The Latino Facebook campaigns from brands like Pantene and ene.be.a—the NBA rebranded to appeal to Latinos—understand these differences as well as the similarities within the community. And they are successful because of it. Instead of just translating content into Spanish, they listen to their fans. For example, the video highlight clips on the ene.be.a page are in English, because that’s how the fans prefer it. Law firms wanting to target the Hispanic community should be aware of these differences when running a Facebook advertising campaign or setting up a Facebook page.

These successful campaigns suggest that Latinos on Facebook want:

• A conversation: But not about your brand. They’d like information useful to them and will be loyal to a brand that provides it.
• To be heard: Fans are loyal to brands that listen and respond.
• Passion: They want to connect with brands, information and activities that really matter to them.

In the end, brands that truly understand the Latino consumer will have the most successful Facebook campaigns.

Tampa real estate attorneys with Westchase Law P.A. contributed resources to the creation of this article.