A few weeks ago, I was approached by Mike Potter of Arkli.  He wanted to get me on the phone to show me the latest and greatest in social media campaign managers.  I nearly blew him off.  I get a TON of requests to review and look at web tools and most of them end up being a tool that will not provide value to my day-to-day life.

Mike and I scheduled a time to chat and he started showing me Arkli in action via webinar.  It was probably the fifth or sixth minute in that I wanted to just tell him, “Stop talking. Where do I sign up?!”  I begged Mike to let me be the one to share the tool with the world because seriously, you’re all going to thank me later… and I love mint chocolate anything and my shoe size is a 7.5!  Just saying.

Arkli is a tool that lets you manage your social media campaigns.  I know, I know.  You’ve seen and heard it all when it comes to managing social media right?  Wrong.  SO wrong.

What Arkli Does

Arkli lets you import all of your social media accounts, your blogs, your e-mail marketing program (they have a short list right now but it does include MailChimp*!  Win!), your YouTube account and your Google Analytics into the interface. Once all of your accounts are in the system and setup, you now have the ultimate power tool in your hands.

Arkli connects seamlessly to WordPress to allow you to craft a blog post.  Then, with the click of a button, you can turn your blog post into a Tweet using whichever account you want.  Then, with the click of another button, you can turn it into a Facebook update.  Then, you can retweet yourself from a different account (yes, with the click of a button) and you can have it all tracked in their nifty built-in statistics tracker.

Not only that, the tool has ways to manipulate current websites for your full advantage.  For example, let’s say that you want to have a blog post hit your blog next Wednesday but there is a YouTube video that you want to embed in the post too.  Well, you can use Arkli to upload your video to YouTube BUT it won’t appear on YouTube until the time and date specified.  It’s automagical.

In the past, bloggers would have to schedule their post in WordPress, setup some Tweets and Facebook status updates in Hootsuite, upload their video to YouTube but make sure it is set to private, set a reminder for the day the blog post is due to make YouTube video public, edit the WordPress post to have the proper YouTube embed code and hope you remember to do it before the post goes live.

Who Would Benefit from Arkli

This tool is going to benefit anyone that uses social media and blogging.  Having the ability to preschedule your blogs in the same location that you generate your Tweets and Facebook status updates is a huge time saver. 

Here is my short list of who will benefit from this:

• Bloggers (when you get asked to review a product/service, being able to setup the entire campaign and share it with your sponsor is a professional way to present yourself)
• Social media users (allows you to provide more value, more often with less time and money spent)
• Business owners (setup product / service promotions via Arkli)
• Affiliate managers (imagine setting up your entire event/product promotion in Arkli and then sharing that with your affiliates so that they can setup their own promotional pieces off of content you’ve already built?!)
• Joint venture partners (finally you’ll have one place to create content and share it with a succinct message)

A Peek Inside

I am pretty convinced that the description above is not going to be enough… you won’t be able to see the full awesomeness of the tool without seeing the inside.  So, I’m going to show you how easy it will make your life in the following screenshots.  These screens were taken as I was writing and scheduling this blog post and associated media.

Following screenshot shows the social media campaign interface once you’ve added a blog post to it.

The next screenshot shows the Twitter / Facebook additions.

As you can see, it is super simple to create social media updates from your existing content.  In fact, I copy and paste from my blog post to create the updates so that I do not lose the integrity of my message.  In the Tweet (above screenshot) section, you can see that I have a retweet option as well which means my other social media accounts can get in on the action too.  Thus multiplying my reach.

As you build your campaign, your reach figures increase at the bottom of the screen.

This is a great way for you to see just how many people will be reached with your own outreach.  This doesn’t take into consideration the number of people you have reading your blog but it does include all numbers from your social media accounts.

The Advanced Functions

Arkli also has some advanced functionality that I am really enjoying.  

The first one that I love is the ability to share campaigns.  What does that mean?  Well, let’s say you are writing a blog post like this one.  A review of a product / service or maybe even an interview or perhaps a podcast.  Whenever your post is involving other people, you can share the campaign with them ahead of time and if they have an Arkli account (even at the free level!) they can, from your campaign, schedule their own retweets and tweets.

The second thing I am loving is the statistics that I can see and review per campaign.  If I am doing a blog post and I want to see the reach, clicks, etc. Arkli will compile that for me.  Not only will I be able to see the statistics within the program, I’ll also get an e-mail at the end of the campaign which summarizes how well it did.

What’s Missing

Now, it wouldn’t be a fair review if I didn’t point out a few things that are on my wish list for Arkli.  However, Mike has been super receptive to hearing these ideas and has promised to add in the suggestions that will add true value for multiple users.

1. A calendar of scheduled items — there is the main campaign calendar which shows you the overview of what is going to post when but when you are inside, editing a campaign, there isn’t a way to see this easily.  For now though, opening your campaign calendar in a separate tab works for me.
2. A way to upload photos within the blog editor — right now I am uploading photos via my own blog in a separate tab and then just using the add full image URL function for images.  They did have the functionality to upload an image present but it’s disappeared again so I can’t wait for that to come back.
3. An indexed list of past, present and future campaigns — I’d love a simple list, off the calendar grid, that showed the list of past, present and future campaigns so I could easily click through to edit them.  In fact, it’d be awesome if the list showed the campaigns, had an edit button next to it and beside that a stats button for easy access to the stats.

To Close

Arkli is a tool that I am going to be recommending to ALL of our clients immediately.  In fact, I don’t want to work on anyone’s social media campaigns unless they are using this tool.  It is seriously that awesome.

If you have any questions about Arkli, its functionality or how I use it, please leave them as a comment.  I’d be more than happy to answer them!

Oh, now is the time that you run, not walk, over to Arkli’s website and sign up (at least get your free account going so you can play with it!)  If you like it, love it or are indifferent, comment that too!  Would love to be able to pass more feedback on to Mike and the team at Arkli.

Visit Arkli’s website here.

Follow Mike Potter (guy behind Arkli) here.

* I have used an affiliate link here.  If you prefer not to click through my affiliate link, simply Google the tool referenced.  Your karma score may go down a wee bit but in the grand scheme of things, we can still be friends.  Promise.

Reader question:

I have 270 people on my Facebook Fan Page, how do I get more to follow me?

I’ve already done the suggest to friends button to invite the people on my profile page. I have some new friends on my profile page but I was waiting to establish a relationship with them since I have spoken to these people in years.

I was thinking of having a contest/draw for a complimentary service by asking people to invite their friends when I reach a certain amount of people and then have another contest later to continue increasing the number until I reach at least 500.

What do you think?

Response:

The process of gaining new friends, fans, followers, etc. is an interesting one and one that I get asked about a lot.  The truth is, there is no real magic formula to getting your number of fans to go up.

Think of it this way… if you walked into a networking event and just stood in the corner or at the bar, you wouldn’t get to know very many people, right?  Or, if you were delivering a seminar but you were dry, boring and the information you shared was regurgitated, you aren’t going to necessarily walk away with people who loved what you did.  People want authenticity and they want interesting.

Making friends, fans or followers on social media comes from having interesting things to say, interesting resources to share and forging relationships with the people you meet.  It also comes from the value you give to the community.

There is this perception on social media that more followers / friends / fans = success.  It’s just not the truth.  You could have 100,000 fans on your Facebook page but the real value is in knowing how many of those people listen to what you have to say, interact with you and interact with the other people you’ve attracted.

However, that being said, there are some ways that you can attract more people to you.

• Start a blog. If you aren’t blogging yet, do so!  You can utilize the blog as a feeder system into your other outlets.  For example, you could start a blog post on your blog but have the rest of it posted as a note on your Facebook fan page which will drive people there.  Blogs allow you to give the ultimate amount of value and they never disappear so you benefit from them for a long time to come.
• Interact in groups, pages, etc. to find other similar people. Sometimes the “if you build it, they will come” idea just doesn’t work.  Instead, you have to go out and find people to friend, fan or follow.  Once those relationships are being built, you’ll naturally find people who are ideal for your world.
• Contests are a great idea – when done correctly (see examples at bottom of post). There is something to be said about a good Facebook fan page contest but there is even more to be said about the bad contests.  The goal here is to create something of interest that will want people to come to your site but you also don’t want to come across as saying, “I just want MORE fans!”  Yes, that is the end result but saying so might make your current “fans” think, “Well… I wonder what’s wrong with the lot of us that is here!”

After you gain new “fans”, building the relationship and having them stay a long-time “fan” is something you’ll have to work on personally and that will just take time, authenticity and a little effort.

Do you have an interesting way that you, or someone you know, has used to gain more fans on Facebook? If so, leave it as a comment so we can continue the discussion!

***

Here are some examples of Facebook fan page contests that have worked.  Thank you to my friends on Twitter for providing the references!

• From @DLPhotography – a contest to drive people to the Facebook fan page: http://www.daniellelynnphotography.com/all-posts/firstbirthday-ottawa-photographer/
• From @NtQtSouthSurrey – @Klutchphoto is hosting a contest for her photography business as well: http://klutchphotography.com/blog/?p=280

Also, before you do a contest, be sure to read the Facebook Promotion Guidelines!  There are some distinct rules you need to follow.  If you prefer a short cut, this blog post sums up the rules nicely.

I just got back from speaking at my very last event before baby arrives and it was for the Entrepreneurial Moms group here in Ottawa. The event was focused on social media and it was the second time I’ve been to speak for this group.

I promised everyone at the event that I would post up the resources I mentioned and shared as well as the slide decks from the first and second events so this post is serving that purpose. I also figured it might be helpful for some of you out there who are jumping into social media.

Slide Deck from Part One

Slide Deck from Part Two

Resources Mentioned in the Slide Deck from Part Two

• Twitter Lingo 101
• Twitter for Business free Video Series
• Adding Revenue to Your Twitter Stream
• Lifestreaming Design

I’ve been taking some time lately to look for interesting and relevant people to add to my list of people I follow on Twitter and doing so has meant that I’ve had the opportunity to meet some really exciting individuals.  It’s also meant that I’ve had the opportunity to see who is / isn’t following me already and more importantly… who has blocked me.

Yep, there are people out there who have blocked me from following them.

I’m not embarassed to say so… It doesn’t even really bother me.  I just think it’s silly.  Blocking users doesn’t mean they can’t see your Tweets… It just means you can’t become one of their followers.  So, I suppose they have a very red velvet rope policy about who gets the honor of reading their 140 character updates.

Some of the individuals who have blocked me are people I don’t even know… However, I’ve drawn some parallels.  For example, there is a virtual assistant who is very prominent in the industry.  She’s got a blog and a forum and such and for whatever reason, she’s blocked me.  Maybe she doesn’t want me to be seen on her followers list as I might be competition?  Maybe she just doesn’t like me?  For whatever her reasons are, I can kind of understand it.

What I can’t understand though is why the other bloggers on her site have also blocked me… I feel transported back to high school where groups of girls would form cliques and gossip about other girls.  Gossip and be nasty.  Is this really where we’ve gone to in social media?

There must have been conversations amongst them where they have decided to band together and block me as a collective.  A clique.  To partake in social media snubbing.

I’ve always believed that when you are authentic and 100% yourself, people will either love you or hate you. You draw a line in the sand and people are divided.  It makes finding your ideal community or tribe a heck of a lot easier.

It doesn’t bother me when individuals decide to unfollow or block me for their individual reasons. What worries me about social media snubbing is when negativity spurs a group action.  When a group of people can be so filled with envy, anger, spite, etc. that they’d take a collective action.

Social media allows us to be social, to build community and to get to know each other a little better. I may not enjoy every single Tweet out there but I’d prefer not to close doors in people’s faces but rather weed out the most valuable followers and engage and interact with them instead.

Have you ever experienced social media snubbing?  What did you feel in that moment?

(Photo credit: Noja on Flickr)

Want a better Twitter, Facebook and e-mail integration tool? Want to kick Tweetdeck to the curb? Enter Threadsy. Erin Blaskie reviews this tool and explains why she uses it in this video review.

I have 5,000 friends on my Facebook profile.  Facebook has a limit on your personal profile of 5,000.  I reached that limit before Facebook introduced “Fan Pages”.  Now, I have a Fan Page setup as well that I would love to replace my profile.  Why?  Well, you aren’t limited on your Fan Page as to how many fans you can have.

Since my profile is what most people find in search, people keep adding me there.  I can’t add anyone else because my profile is full.  So, I have 2,188 people in wait (as of the date of this blog post).  So, I add these people as those from my current list of 5,000 drop off.  We’re talking about adding one person every three days or so.

Here’s the killer part of this…  I could message these people and say, “Hey! I see you want to connect with me… why don’t you connect up on my fan page?” however Facebook sends me a warning after about the fifth sent message to these individuals.  They also warn that they can close your account down for sending out too many messages.

So… what do I do?

These 2,188 people obviously want to connect with me except I can’t connect back with them.  If I try to communicate with them, I run the risk of Facebook shutting my account down (oh, if they shut your account down and you haven’t appointed a second person on your fan page as administrator, kiss that page goodbye… by the way).

Facebook, why are you holding my people hostage like this?  Has anyone out there found a solution to this?

What I wish Facebook would have done was just convert profiles into fan pages in terms of how they behave.  It would have been very easy to lift the cap on the number of friends, like fan pages, and just let people connect with however many people they want.  Look at Twitter, for example, where some people have hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers.

Or, maybe Facebook could allow us to hide certain profiles in search.  Maybe you can do this already (I haven’t spent too much time looking at the new privacy settings yet) but I think an easy way to say, “Don’t show my profile but rather just my fan page” would be great.

So, anyone out there have any advice on this subject?

Last week (or was it the week before…) I spoke at The Ottawa Network’s (TON) special event on the subject of “Becoming Known by Using Social Media & Blogs”.  Afterward, I had a lot of great questions come in from people who had attended my talk.  There was one in particular that I wanted to post publicly to get YOUR feedback, support, guidance and advice on as I couldn’t answer it.

The question is in two parts.  The first one is good – I answered it but it’s the second I need your help with.   Thanks in advance!

——–

An e-mail from Tim Warland:

Thank you for the insight into “today’s generation” at TON last night. I didn’t get a chance to speak with you but have a couple questions:

1. What is the Google tool you discussed to “stalk” yourself?

   (Erin’s Answer:  The Google tool that I use to stalk myself (haha) is Google Alerts.  You can set them up and have them send you a daily e-mail of the mentions of your name, a keyword, your company name, etc.  Best part is that it is free!)

2. I think there is a hole in the social media space. Do you know which tool can patch it?

   Two popular social media tools are facebook and linked-in. Although I don’t facebook, it is a place to inform family and casual friends about my life (not specifically my work life). LinkedIn is for my professional network. As a rule, I only connect to people I know well enough to introduce them to other people in my network. That leaves a hole for about 400 people I know. Folks like the person I shared a plane ride to Boston, people from whom I collected a business card at a tradeshow. Maintaining some form of informal connection is important. What tool manages these casual relationships?

   I’d like to nurture these people who, for the most part, haven’t connected to social media. My objective is to create a monthly newsletter that I can email to different tribes (if the term is correct). The 6-paragraph version of the newsletter would be for family and close friends (the facebook crowd). A three paragraph version would be for professional colleagues (the linkedIn crowd). A single paragraph version would go to the hundreds of casual connections.

   The email would direct people to view my blog (which would look like the 6-paragraph newsletter) and suggest they follow me on twitter, or whatever. The idea would be to encourage them to make a connection back to me.

   What tool is available to fill this space as we transition the older crowd (my tribe) to the new media? Any ideas?

   (Erin’s Answer:  I don’t really know… I use Twitter but I don’t know that it’s a great transitional tool.  Let’s put this to the crowd!)

Thank you in advance!  Leave a comment if you can help answer #2.

via mashable.com

Interesting stats about a few of our favorite social networking sites.

Posted via web from Erin’s posterous

I LOVE my iPhone and if you know me, you know that I talk about it often. Here’s a little video I did about the iPhone apps that I use on my iPhone.

What iPhone apps do you use?

[tags]iPhone, iPhone apps, business apps, Erin Blaskie, productivity, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tweetie, MySpace, Urban Spoon, Outpost, Bump, Diggnation, Ustream, Fring, Dictionary[/tags]