Tools are what make it easier for fans to talk about you. It’s nice when a fan tells a friend about you, but it’s even nicer when they can tell the whole world.

As a word-of-mouth marketer, your job is to put these tools in the hands of your talkers to motivate them, to remind them and to make them feel good about spreading the word. Some simple concepts to get you started:

• Make it ready to cut and paste. Create stuff that’s easy to steal. Offer logos, banner ads, icons, sample text and ready-to-forward e-mail messages. Ever notice how eMarketer’s charts are ready to paste right into your PowerPoint presentation? (read more…)

SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues.

Last week’s poll question: Which of these qualities is most important to a blog’s success?

• A distinctive voice –  43.41%
• Compelling exclusive content — 35.66%
• A unique niche – 11.63%
• Strong promotion via social-media channels — 5.04%
• Excellent SEO — 2.71%
• Connections to famous brands, personalities — 1.55%

The results of this week’s poll took me a little bit by surprise. Given that this question was answered by 295 SmartBrief on Social Media readers, I would have guessed that most people would have favored the niche answer. After all, social media is about building community, and communities thrive in niche environments. Think about your favorite blogs for a second. I’m wiling to bet most of them cater to a pretty specific audience. Niche blogs are lean, focused and easy to pitch to their intended audiences. (read more…)

SmartBrief has grown a lot during the past year. We’ve covered conferences, launched briefs, held seminars and attracted hundreds of thousands of new readers. But something is missing. And we think it might be you.

For the first time ever, SmartBrief is scouring our readers to find the next leading voice in social media to join the coveted SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board and pen our weekly SmartPulse feature as our newest SmartBrief Poll Analyst.

We figured there’s no better way to find this social-media savvy writer than a contest to show us all what you’ve got. So here’s your chance to join Team SmartBrief and become the newest member of our Advisory Board.

What we’re looking for:

• Someone who’s endlessly curious about social media. We don’t need an expert; we need a scientist.
• The kind of magnetic writer who can ask the right questions and make data come alive for our readers.
• A gifted promoter who can expose their work to new audiences. (read more…)

One of the most common search terms that leads people to this blog is some variation on “What’s next after Facebook” or “the Next Big Thing after Facebook.”

That’s understandable. Social media moves like a cheetah on rocket skates, and for some social-media marketing professionals, being able to predict the Next Big Thing can mean attention, caché and credibility. For others,  it’s not a professional drive so much as a fascination with what’s new and hip — akin to being a fan of a band without a record deal or raving about a little hole-in-the-wall diner nobody’s ever heard of. And some folks are still pining for that perfect social network, the one that just does everything right.

The trouble is that there is no Next Big Thing — at least, not yet. Facebook isn’t showing any signs of a MySpace-style collapse. Location-based networks are still limited by smartphone-adoption rates. And as for Google’s long-rumored social-network project — let’s just say I’ve been burned by Google before, and I’ll believe it when I see it. (read more…)