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You’re aware of all the buzz surrounding social media marketing (SMM). You no doubt already have Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for your business. Yet, you have that nagging feeling that you really should be able to make this new form of online marketing work a lot better than it does now. Perhaps all you need is a little bit of the right help.

Grosocial is a Utah based company that specializes in helping businesses create more effective social media presences. Their tools are used by thousands of companies worldwide to find new customers through social networking platforms and convert those relationships into higher revenue.

Perhaps the most interesting service that Grosocial offers is an online tool called “Customizer.” This is a drag-and-drop page editor for Facebook. Rather than settle for what Facebook provides and everyone else uses, why not stand out in the crowd with something that looks and works completely different? Let’s take a look as some of the ways you can customize your social media marketing.

Start with dynamic forms. Pick from basic form fields, checkboxes, radio buttons and drop down lists. Use these to collect names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses or whatever else would be useful in engaging a potential customer. These form widgets let help you generate more leads that you can today or schedule appointments or gather promotional entries.

Next incorporate other social media on your page with like and follow buttons or Twitter feeds, YouTube videos and more. Once again, these social tools are set up to be simple drag and drop operations. No software required.

Are you happy with the way your Facebook tabs work today? Boooorinnngggg. Put some zip in them with over 70 fonts, buttons, gradients and shapes for that professional appearance and visitor appeal. Go ahead and add slideshows, your own logos, photos and other images. Need more graphics than you have now? Us the provided image gallery for backgrounds, headers, banners, footers and other ready-to-use professional images. You may not need to engage a graphic designer at all.

Expand your promotions and make them more viral using sharing oriented features like reveal tabs, digital downloads, production listings and a promotion widget.

How do you know if any of this is really working? End results will be a sure indicator, but sometimes these promotional efforts take a while to reach fruition. No need to be stuck in the dark meanwhile. Use the Customizer analytics to see which tabs are working and which ones aren’t You can track hits, page views, who shared your tab, when they shared it and how often it was shared, plus number of “likes”, form submissions and other key data. Peruse online or export the data for further analysis.

Does all of this have you thinking that maybe your Facebook tabs could be doing a better job for your business? If so, this would be a good time to start a free 30 day trial of the GroSocial Customizer. No credit card is needed and you can get going right now. If, and only if, you really like how it works, then go ahead and sign up for the subscription service at a very reasonable cost. It’s a good way to improve your social media marketing without making a major investment.

Press Releases Get Social

Press releases have done a rapid evolution over the past couple of decades. The legacy press release is a single piece of paper written to a proscribed format intended for journalists. The Internet encouraged PRs to move online with email distribution. The rise of social media is causing businesses to once again review just what a press release is and what it should do. The press release has become the social media news release.

Why would a company publish a press release, news release or social media news release? It’s no accident that the abbreviation PR is used for both press release and public relations. They are tightly linked. They’re both about managing information from a company intended to its target audience, often the general public. Press releases are announcements about new products, events, issues and so on. They may be for general distribution or targeted at a specific interest group or customer base.

In the traditional approach, there is an intermediary between the company issuing the press release and the readers. That is the magazine, newspaper or newsletter publishers or radio and TV stations. PRs are usually directed to particular journalists or the newsroom in general. Press release issuers aren’t in the publication business... or at least they didn’t use to be.

The Internet scrambles these relationships. Now everyone can be both a consumer and a publisher. Publication lead times have shrunk from months down to hours or less. Yesterday’s news might now be last hour’s news or, oh, so 10 minutes ago.

Readership has also moved. Daily and weekly newspapers are the walking dead for the most part. The national news evening wrapups have thinner viewership every year. Even magazine racks are thinning out. Where did everybody go? They’re still reading, but what they’re reading is Facebook pages, tweets, blogs and online news media. Others aren’t reading at all. They’re absorbed in video content they find on YouTube, Vimeo and other platforms.

To reach both the press and your target audience, you need an up to date technology solution that embraces both traditional media and the influencers of the new social media. If you don’t have one already, take a close look at what Mynewsdesk has to offer.

Mynewsdesk is a cost effective PR platform that works with social media. It’s an online resource that you pay for by the month. There are several plans, depending on how many features you want and need to support your public relations efforts.

What you get is your own customized online social media newsroom. You’ll gain the ability to create and manage social media news releases, press contacts, photos, videos, blog, Facebook, Twitter, links, current news, network and sharing. Add your newsroom to your Facebook Page with a Facebook app. Customize the look and feel of your newsroom and then embed it into your own website and publish your stories.

Next, manage your network and increase your influence. You’ll easily create and update personalized contact lists or import them from Excel and CVS. Strengthen relationships by inviting key people to follow your newsroom and send exclusive content to your most important contacts. Why settle for a list of names when you can have richer social profiles that include your contacts’ email addresses, Twitter names, job titles, phone numbers and other key information. It’s all part of the same toolset.

Now find out who’s talking about you online. Gain leverage by finding, listening to and engaging with people who talk about your brand online. You’ll monitor conversations about your brand, industry or competitors online through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and 40,000 other sources. Engage instantly, identify your key influencers and get them into your network.

Finally, know how you are doing by viewing real-time results of your PR activities. Remove the guesswork by analyzing the reach and distribution of what you publish in your newsroom. Find out how people find your newsroom through search terms and referring websites. Know what countries your visitors come from. Make sure everyone in your organization stays on top of your PR efforts by sending out key reports by email on a schedule you set.

Are you feeling that your own PR efforts are mired in the past, using tools that once worked well but are increasingly ineffective? Are you a new company that needs to get a fast and effective launch? Why not try a new social media platform without risk? Get a free 30 day trial of Mynewsdesk and see how well it works for you.