Are you closing your social media connection loops?

How can you engage strong Klout leaders in social media, then close the engagement loop?  Let’s take a look.  This post begins with a focus on a great engagement tip using HootSuite — the pro social media dashboard, scheduling and swiss knife tool.  Then we’ll look at a SlideShare presentation (still another content engagement tactic you should explore) and with a takeaway on content strategy.  The beauty of the sequence is that using social media, one connection led to another and this post closes that loop.

Let’s start with a Hootsuite tip (disclosure, Webdirexion is a pro solution partner with Hootsuite and both Julie Hume and myself are certified in Social Media Marketing by Hootsuite University).  In a nutshell, this tip focuses on finding and engaging Klout leaders.  You read it right — “Klout” is the name of a ratings service that looks a key performance indicators in social media and assigns you a score.  The higher the score, the more Klout you have.

The Klout Technique in Hootsuite

In the screenshot below, using Hootsuite, you can see that I have first filtered in the “stream” of twitter users that have mentioned our company (@Webdirexion) using the Klout filter set for at least 40-45 strength.  This reveals at least one possible Klout leader for engagement:

3-steps for engaging with Klout leaders as a social media marketing tactic.

My reply, which links back to this post, shows in the Hootsuite stream with the original message.

After I review a Klout leaders profile, I check number of followers (Vinay has 4400+ followers that may see my reply to him) and further qualify the the contact. Then I actually read the post and follow the link in it.  I need to do each of these things to qualify the contact (ie. a possible client or a colleague?) and make an intelligent reply.  No robo-replies here — being “social” means you actually talk to one another with authentic dialog.

Following the link in Mr. Koshy’s original post led me to the slideshare presentation included below — and gave me the right inspiration for a reply.  Note that in the reply, I did three key things:

• I linked back to this article which mentions the dialog
• I put some text before @vpkoshy because if I did not, only vpkoshy would see the reply (credit to our Julie Hume for the tip on that tactic)
• I used a hashtag to extend visibility for the reply

The Content Strategy Concept (from a Slideshare presentation)

Note how the Content Pillars support each of the objectives above.

On slide 28 shown at right, in a presentation recommended by our Klout Leader friend from Australia, the author  (Christel Quek) gives a diagram of three “content pillars” supporting the audience, brand objective and user motivations.  What a concise way to picture your “content marketing” work to be done.

There are also a number of great tips for social media marketing in that presentation, including:

• Using hashtags as a call to action
• Let your brand personality shine in social media
• Remember to use social media to “listen to understand”
• Focus on how your products or services touch people’s lives
• Make your user the hero
• Recognize your champions — influencers

I then left a comment at the slideshare.  Thousands of people will see the tweet.  Mr. Koshy will see that Webdirexion replied directly and followed up and respected his tweet.  Ms. Quek will find out that a Koshy tweet led to a blog post with her slideshare embedded (below).  Who knows, maybe Vinay Koshy and Christel Quek will learn about and help be influencers for Webdirexion.  It’s a social circle — see how that works?

Here’s the slideshare on winning at content strategy:

Hootsuite:  Social Insights with Adam Pisoni Co-founder – Yammer

At the center of this post’s tactical tools is Hootsuite, so we’ll end with a short video of thoughts related to using the platform.

How does a company respond fast enough to their customers that are themselves, communicating, sharing and learning at faster and faster speeds due to technology?  Adam Pisoni of Yammer has some thoughts in the following video. Yammer is a private social network that helps employees collaborate across departments, locations, and business apps.  Note that you can add Yammer and dozens of other networks and apps into your convenient Hootsuite pro dashboard.