Humans love to see themselves in print.

An article, a magazine photo, a tweet- whatever it is, if it’s printed and has your name on it, it’s exciting.

So if you include a person or company in your article, guess who’s guaranteed to do some free promoting and marketing for you? Your article will be sent to parents, grandparents, networks of friends and retweeted throughout the Twitterverse.

Take the corporate blog I write for. I write an article and tweet about it each morning. I usually get one or two Re-Tweets, and that’s it.

I realized the power of link love when my boss suggested (I suspect he already well understands the power of linksharing) that I try tagging the people in my blog photos, giving them exact names and links to their companies.

Guess how many re-tweets I got then?

It’s also worked countless other times, especially when I give a shout-out to Twitterers on our blog posts. RT’s of those posts continue for days.

It’s called link love, and it’s what the Internet blogosphere thrives on. Imagine if no one shared links- we’d all have a PR of 0. (PR = page rank.. but that’s a whole other story).

1. TweetDeck – TweetDeck allows you to pull up several Twitter search columns and search for several different phrases at once. If you’re a social media writer, you already understand the importance of Twitter for business marketing- this handy tool allows you to keep up with the entire Twitterverse from just one platform.

2. Google News – I used to search for collaboration news (as I work for a collaboration software company) by typing “Collaboration software” into the Google homepage. Bad idea. My results included advertisements, spam sites and any webpage that ever mentioned the phrase. Now, I use Google News each morning to check up on NEWS that’s important to me, and let Google do the spam and irrelevant search result filtering FOR me.

3. Facebook- Facebook recently reached its 300 million active members mark, there are currently 65 million Facebook users accessing the social platform from their mobile devices and more than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook worldwide each day. Need I say more? Facebook. Use it.

4. Blog – Blogging has evolved into a crucial corporate tool, as good company blogs keep customers or readers informed, updated and loyal to your business.

5. Digg- Digg brings the top breaking news of the web to you, so you don’t have to scour the Internet for hours on end, searching for interesting articles/sites relevant to your company. You can also publish your own articles to Digg! It is called the “Digg Effect” – write an informative and engaging article, Digg it and watch it go viral!

6. Delicious- At first I was skeptical about the importance of social bookmarking. Although it’s used by many for social networking, I simply find Delicious useful in bookmarking the sites which I find relevant to my company’s industry. Unlike bookmarking onto Firefox or Internet Explorer, you can access your Delicious bookmarks from any web browser, on any computer.

7. Google Analytics – Google Analytics will let you see who is following your website or blog, what pages they are viewing the most and how long they are spending on your site each time they visit. This proves useful in evaluating your articles and deciding whether or not you are effectively engaging readers’ interests.

8. A Good Collaboration Solution- I’ll throw in a plug here. As a social media writer, it’s imperative to stay organized and on top of things. I’m sure you’ve felt overwhelmed by the numerous web tools, social media sites and applications you need to log into each day. Using a collaboration software lets you condense all your important documents, articles, logins, bookmarks, projects and social media marketing campaigns into one online workspace. Don’t opt for just any free online tool, however- good collaboration tools should be intuitive, professional and affordable.

If you haven’t been doing so already as you read the article, bookmark each of these sites into your Delicious Bookmarks Folder or Firefox Toolbar now! And bookmark this article while you’re at it- you never know when you might need to share these tips with your coworkers or friends.

Grace Kang is the SEO and Social Media Marketing Copywriter at the top Collaboration software company Central Desktop. Located in Pasadena, Central Desktop is a leading SaaS Online Project Management software that competes with other collaboration platforms such as Sharepoint. Central Desktop, however, offers more, at one tenth of the price. Visit our site to learn more about Online Collaboration Tools – if you want to try Central Desktop, voted Best of the Web by BusinessWeek, you can sign up for a free trial, no credit card required, and get a collaboration solution working for you in just minutes.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Grace_X_Kang
http://EzineArticles.com/?8-Tools-That-Every-Social-Media-Writer-Needs-to-Bookmark-NOW&id=3159788

Let’s take a look at an example. Say you are writing a post on Networking, and you need a picture for the post.

This is a stock photo:

The stock photo, while delivering a user-friendly (and colorful) illustration of the concept of networking, seems rather cheesy, assuming that your target audience already understands the concept of networking and doesn’t need it spelled out for them.

A real photo, perhaps of a company logo, or a photo of two of your clients networking, or a screen shot of a computer screen on which efficient networking is taking place, is much more valuable.

Here’s a real photo:

Let’s pretend this was a photo of an actual networking event you attended or hosted. This photo delivers information about you, what you do, how large your client base is, and will probably make them want to attend one of your networking events too.

Stock photo = cheesy cute.

Real photo= can potentially turn readers into loyal followers and clients.

This means be sincere in tone, speak what you KNOW (believe me, people can tell) , put real pictures (I got some crap for this one because I kept using stock photos instead of real photos on our company blog) and give real, useful and important information.

Sincere Tone

These days,as the number of bloggers, business blogs, niche blogs and etc grow, people are becoming more and more wary of who they follow. Studies prove that what online bloggers and social media followers are looking for is genuine conversation. They’re looking to your blog for sincere advice and lessons you’ve learned from your own experiences.

Speak what you know.

For example, if I was writing this blog as if I were the expert of writing, you’d be in for a big letdown, because no fresh out of college graduate is going to be THE expert and know-it-all of anything. Instead, I invite you to follow me on my learning process towards becoming an expert. Speak what you know and the appropriate audience will follow.

Post real, relevant photos.

The CTO of my company called my stock photos cheesy and distracting. (Stock photos are the images you purchase on iphoto.com- a site “stocked” with generic photos  you can purchase the rights to). After careful consideration, I realized he was right- they are cheesy. Stick with real photos, so the customers associate real faces to your brand name.

The most important part of blogging is having good content.

The Forrester Report asked people why they return to a website, and the consensus was “Content.”  Keep your blog fresh by adding new content everyday- noone will subscribe to a blog that posts only once every 6 months. Write about your industry news, exciting company events, etc. With good content, people will begin to follow your updates and make your blog a part of their daily blog-reading routine.

S.E. Hinton stands for Susan Eloise Hinton, who began the novel at the age of 15 and published it a year later.

If she can do it… What’s stopping you?

If your headlines aren’t interesting, why would anyone waste time reading the rest of your article? Statistics show that you (as the writer) only have a few seconds to catch a reader’s attention before they get bored and leave.

The 2 things that your reader will scan for are:

1. Headlines

2. Headings

A headline is the title of an article. The heading is a sub-title that you mark each new paragraph or idea with.

Here are 4 brilliant headline formulas that are sure to get your readers’ attention, from Brian Clark at copyblogger.com:

1. Who else wants ____?

• who else wants to become a millionaire?
• who else wants to become a superstar?
• who else wants a reality show?

2. The Secret of _____.

• the secret of succesful businessmen
• the secret of new york times best selling authors
• the secret to getting out of speeding tickets everytime

3. Get Rid of _____ Once and For All

• get rid of acne once and for all
• get rid of procrastination once and for all ( This headline would attract 90% of the college population)
• get rid of annoying neighbors once and for all

4.  ______ Like _______

• sing like Mariah Carey
• dance like Michael Jackson
• write like an Expert

You can get the full article here, or access it in my Links box to the right.

Start practicing and creating your own surefire headline formulas now!

• The competition?
• Starving writer jokes?
• The intimidatingly wide and broad scope of the writing industry?
• Don’t know where to start?

Don’t worry- you’re not alone. Every writer before you has faced these common fears and uncertainties before taking the leap into being a “Professional writer”- whatever that really means.

Today, writers are a part of :

• Marketing
• Advertising
• Technical Writing
• Film
• Television
• Print media
• PR
• Technology
• Research
• Business Development
• and More. (as in, every single industry that exists on Earth).

Get my point? Everyone is a writer. You, on the other hand, are just exceptionally good at it. (Or let’s hope you are).

If there’s one thing I’m learning about writing, it’s that writing is so versatile that it can be used in any field, any industry, and any line of work. I’m going to be focusing on Internet writing, as that’s my current job entails. If there’s one thing everyone knows about the Internet, it’s that it’s always changing. So the lessons I reveal on here will probably not be available on dated blogs, and vice versa.

Join me as I explore the world of writing, writing opportunities , writing advice from the best writers of the world, writing news,  the best writers of the world and the changing rules of mass media writing.

You wanna be a writer? Get started!