The latest trends in Social Media Marketing...yes they are cool.

I have promised you guys that I would stay abreast ( when I was reading this to my kids for them to tell me how it sounded, all three started giggling when I said breast) of the latest trends in social media and digital marketing. I have been doing research for about two weeks now, on just social media trends, and here are some of the things I have come up with.

1) Create a stream on Twitter with popular hashtags

The best place to find out the most recent news about social is ... social media! Start by creating a stream on Twitter with popular social media hashtags. You can use terms like #socialmediamarketing, #smchat, or #TwitterTip -- if you need more ideas, check out Hashtag.org. Be careful of using something too general (like #marketing) because you will soon see a swarm of tweets flooding into your stream.

2) Make a Twitter list of influencers in the industry

The beauty about social media is that the people who are experts in it often hang out there. Whenever there is a new announcement or takeaway regarding social media, you will find influencers tweeting and having discussions about it.

Use the hashtags that you gathered in the previous example and pick out the most active and/or insightful people tweeting there. Make a Twitter list based on your findings and spend some time each day running through the list to see what they have to say. And don't be shy to ask them questions yourself. After all, that's what social media is all about!

If you want some help getting started, here's a list of social media experts and influencers that we admire. It is a public list so you can follow it, too.

3) Use Google Alerts on terms and influencers

Now that you have a list of influencers that you can follow on social media, you can set up a Google Alert for some of them. That way you will get regular updates when they post content or are interviewed about social media. Pick your top three favorite influencers and set up Google Alerts for them. This will help you stay up to date on any breaking news in the industry. A bit of a warning though, I would recommend getting these alerts once a day so your inbox isn't completely clogged.

All you have to do is type in your search term (the influencer's name), select the types of results you want to see (news, blogs, videos, etc.), select your frequency, and you are ready to go.

4) Join LinkedIn Groups

Discussions on LinkedIn about social media for business are extremely lively. Whether there's an update to Facebook, a new social network that's making traction, or a new theory on the future of social media, you are sure to find it in LinkedIn groups. Even better, you will meet a lot of other social media enthusiasts that you can network with and ask questions.

Here are a few I recommend checking out:

• Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Marketers
• Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales & Social Media Innovators Innovation Network
• Social Media Today

5) Subscribe to social media blogs

Also subscribe to a few blogs that post content about social media so you can be sure that you won't miss anything. If there's a new feature or trend, it will definitely be on written about in detail on these blogs. More important than subscribing to these blogs is making sure you set aside time each week to read through your content. Block off as much time as you need to go through the content -- that could be anywhere from 15 minutes a day or 15 minutes a week.

Here are a few blogs to get you started that frequently cover social media:

• HubSpot's Inbound Hub
• Social Media Examiner
• Social Media Today
• Simply Measured
• Social Media Explorer

6) Go to a conference or monitor a Twitter stream from the conference

Take the time to go to a social media conference. This will be a great opportunity to hear from social media experts in the industry and be able to ask the burning questions you may have. You will get the most up-to-date advice about running a social media campaign and what you should know when using social media.

However, it isn't realistic for all of us to pack up and go to every single conference that talks about social media. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, you should definitely follow along remotely. Every social media conference will have a corresponding Twitter hashtag that you can follow during the conference, and a lot of the tweets will be quotes from the social media sessions so you will still get access to some of the information shared there.

For example, every year we host an inbound marketing conference called INBOUND, and we'll often cover top social media trends there. The following stream shows people who are talking about the conference with the hashtag #INBOUND14.

How to find Social Media Jobs

I am constantly asked, just how do you find social media jobs? And there is a method to the madness. First and foremost, you need to make sure this is what you want to do, and if you have the tools to do the job. For the most part to do a social media job at the basic level, all you really need is an iphone (because you might be sent attachments with ad campaigns that will require you to have a iphone) or computer with microsoft office programs. I have found that alot of companies want a fair amount of marketing to be done from their social media managers, so I would highly recommend having a fax machine and scanner.

Here are some sites and ways to search for Social Media jobs.

Craigslist: Yes I know all the bad hype with this site, but honestly it has been the best site when I have done my searches, I have gotten two legit jobs off this site. When searching on craigslist, I would suggest you searching in major cities, and put in the search bar " paid social media" now you will get some internships that will pop up, but you will learn to weed through them.

Indeed.com: Same concept here, just put in the search bar, Paid social media.

Mashable Job Board: This is a very good site, it shows mostly social media, internet jobs only.

Other tips: Follow social media sites on Twitter and Facebook, get on major business's websites and see if they have any opening in social media.

New predictions for social media in 2015

Here is a real informative article I came across today, hope you gleam a bit of knowledge from it!!!

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-predictions-for-2015/

Researching to be a Social Media Guru

Being a nurse and about to embark on Medical School, I am a big advocate of research!! Knowledge is power!! I have found several books to be beneficial for anyone starting out in the up and coming field of Social Media Management. I have predicted that in the next five years, you will be seeing Technical colleges and Community colleges offering diplomas and certificates if not associates degrees in this field. In this digital world we live in business and big corporations have started to see that most folks are on line, more than they watch TV, read magazines ( heck you can do that online) or listen to the radio, umm do people even listen to radios anymore??!! My point is this, most business are going to be employing and needing Social Media Managers, we are seeing it now, and there will be a boom for it here in the next five years.  So I have included some links of some great books that are available on Amazon.com. I highly encourage you to click on the link and give them a look see, I would suggest you get this resource books at this low price now, because like I said, they will be getting more expensive as this field explodes onto the scene. I have put them on the side of my blogs for you to go directly to the page for you to preview them and buy them. I hope this helps, here in the next week I will be posting some companies that I have compiled from Graigslist, and other places that are hiring Social Media Managers. It takes me a while to add these so bear with me, as I research every company for you, so that you are getting legit leads.

Should you pay for social media training??

Ok in my research I have come across quite a few sites that will offer you training in Social Media, and some claim that they can show you ways to get these jobs. Well in my experience I would think that most people who are wanting to get into this field already have experience in social media. I personally would not waste my money on such an investment. Social Media is a new and upcoming field where most of the time the person that is needing it, really doesn't have a set standard of skills other than that the employee has ran some sort of social media site. There are some companies that will ask that you have a bachelor's degree in marketing, bit in my research, I have seen that they put this in the ad to kind of weed out people. In the coming week I will posting some companies that I know are looking for social media manager for you, and hopefully some good sites that you can gleam some tips from.

What's all this hype about Social Media??

I am a newbee to the wonderful world of online, work from home, social media and digital sales. I am a 48 year old nurse and empty nester who has decided to cut back on the nursing and work from the comfort of her home, yea easy said than done. I have learned from this endeavor that it is a very time consuming journey. I have had to really learn what to put in search engines, such as on craigslist and other classified search sites to wade through alot of irrelevant postings to get to what I am looking for. Here is what I have learned.

1. You do not have to limit your searches to your particular city, and thank god for it, because I live in a little podunk town with on street light. lol  I have found that the medium sized cities such as Jacksonville Florida, Tampa Florida, Sacramento California. New Orleans have the most Social Media Jobs, I have done searches in Atlanta and LA, but there just really doesn't seem to be that many in my experience. of course that could change
2. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, AND MORE RESEARCH!!  I used youtube videos, other blogs, facebook sites etc to gleam little pearls of wisdom. 
3. AVOID new start up apps or companies, I mean read the ad, research the company, but typically I have found that they don't want to pay you until their presence gets off the ground. 
4. Create you a great and dynamic resume' for your potential employers. I have found some sites that show you templates of very nice quality social media resume's  one is, http://www.snagajob.com/resumes/social-media-manager/  http://www.dayjob.com/content/social-media-resume-1458.htm    http://mashable.com/2011/05/20/social-media-resumes/
5. USE the network of folks you already have at your fingertips, such as your facebook peeps, your family ( that aunt that just started her business and hasn't a clue about social media) past employers, past school mates, friends, spouses of friends etc, you get the idea, let it be known that you are embarking on this new fields and that you would love to help grow their social media presence!!