Taking on the world of social media can feel an awful lot like going to the gym when you’re really out of shape. You groan and moan, and it’s rather painful for the first few weeks.  Even the simplest tasks (like writing a single blog post) feel like they take forever, and you’re just not seeing the results you want. But - if you stick with it, it becomes easier, your muscles get toned, you feel better, and it becomes part of your routine.

Here’s a few ideas and resources to help you hit the social media gym, and start building your muscle today:

Want to know how social media guru Chris Brogan starts his day?  Here’s his five daily social media tasks.

If your company is starting a blog, and you’re wondering how to find a hook that will keep readers coming back, here’s some corporate blogs that are succeeding.

Need copywriting tips and ideas? Copyblogger is a favorite blog I follow for practical writing tips, tricks, and inspiration. A recent post called “how to kick ass as a freelance writer” has lots of great ideas on how to keep your readers coming back. Even though it’s written as tips for a freelance writer, there’s lots you can apply to writing your blog.

Still trying to get comfortable with Twitter?  Here’s some tips for new Twitter users from Mashable, and don’t miss the Mashable guide to Twitter.

No matter what you do — stick with it. Success in social media will happen as you build your muscle, make new connections, explore and experiment, and increase your confidence. Most of all - have fun with it!

Still trying to wrap your head around the world of social media and what it means to you and your brand?  Or are you trying to make the case with your company for diving into the social space?  Here’s three helpful items we’ve found in the past week that might offer you some additional food for thought.

Digital Buzz has compiled the top 10 social media presentations. You might find some interesting ideas that can apply to your own situation.

From Harvard Business Publishing, here’s an article on Debunking Social Media Myths.  The main point author David Armano underscores is that there’s a common misperception that social media is “free,” and that technology just makes it happen for you.  David points out three general areas of social media that require ongoing strategy and management in order to be successful: seeding, feeding, and weeding.

Are you curious about how other companies allow their employees to Tweet and blog without letting things spin out of control?  Jeremiah Owyang has identified the five ways that companies are allowing employees to participate in the social web.

Recently we published a blog post telling the story about how a relatively innocent Tweet from the floor of a major tradeshow turned into threatening phone calls from the company who was the target of this Tweet.  Had this company approached this situation differently, the brand could have taken ground in establishing a positive engagement with customers in the social media space. Here’s a post from Mashables with great tips for managing social media damage control. Bottom line is the more involved you can be in the world of social media, the quicker you can respond and the less likely you are to be constantly putting out fires.

The ever-expanding presence of the social web is changing how we communication folks are thinking about engaging and enrolling audiences. No matter how much time, effort, and money we put into crafting our campaigns and refining our messages, our audiences are having a bigger say in what our messages really are - or what they should be.  For internal-external marketing alignment, this puts even more pressure on the service experience you’re delivering to your customers. You’d better deliver what you promise or the messages generated by your audiences about your brand could get really out of control.

Here’s a few things I’ve run across this week that expand upon this notion.

The New Social Value Scale
An emerging site called the GoodGuide is creating an online resource for consumers to find information related to the health, environmental, and social impact of popular products. This powerful information will allow consumers to make informed choices about the everyday products they use.  If this site gains enough momentum, marketers may need to refine messages or even alter products to get a better score on the social value scale.

Every Web Page Will Become a Social Experience
The buzz from social web experts continues to imply that eventually every web page could be a social experience - whether it’s intended to be or not.  Jeremiah Owyang recently compiled a list of developing technologies and trends that are shifting us toward this reality.  His conclusion is that this shift will give customers the power to rely on friends, colleagues, and trusted social networks to make countless buying and brand-preference decisions.  As we move closer to this reality, the work of communicators becomes one of engaging, enrolling, and conversing rather than forcing messages that will be ignored.

Leveraging Customer Passion to Maximize Your Message
Finally, from Harvard Business Publishing, an article on leveraging your best customers as natural (and cheap!) spokespeople. Your customers have numerous opportunities through popular sites like YouTube and Facebook to express their passions for products and services. Why not leverage this passion and use it to your best advantage? You could even hire some of these people to sell for you!

In what ways are you changing your message in response to what your audiences are saying about your brand?  Tell us some of the new and unique ways you’re communicating with your audiences – and how you’re supporting those messages with service.

As my son wraps up his kindergarten year, this proud mama has reflected back on that classic book by Robert Fulghum “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  Those timeless rules like “don’t hit people,” “clean up your own mess,” and “put things back where you found them” can help all of us be better people, both at home and in the business world. To read the entire list of kindergarten values, click here.

Turns out there’s lots you can learn about blogging from the world of Sesame Street.  For new and seasoned bloggers, here’s 5 Things Sesame Street Can Teach You About Breakthrough Blogging.

And here’s a few more interesting things I’ve read this past week:

Are you still trying to decide if your business should join the Twitter revolution?  Here’s another post with some rationale to chew on.

When times are tight, businesses that sell luxury products can face huge challenges in maintaining a meaningful brand.  Here’s some insight on what to do when “luxury” becomes a four-letter word.

Trying to figure out what to do with all your new online relationships? Here’s some ideas from Business Week on learning and profiting from online relationships.

We spent the day yesterday with a favorite client, talking about how to leverage the input, expertise, and agendas of multiple departments to build a strong employment brand. For a variety of reasons, her company has resisted entering the social media space in any sort of official capacity, although it’s undeniable that employees within the company are already participating on their own.  We can see it’s on the horizon for her company, and we had some energizing discussions on how they can best prepare for this shift that will ultimately impact the brand and culture of the company.

Here are four things we’ve read in the past week that continue to fuel our thinking on the topic of brands and social media:

Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester, has become a favorite expert who we follow on Twitter and in his blog posts. In a recent post on the Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals, he outlines the five eras of the social web.  This is fascinating stuff.

From Business Week, read about “How Social Networks are Changing Everything.” This article gives some glimpses of how we might manage our on-line identities in the future.

You know lots of companies, both big and small, are launching into the social media world.  We enjoyed reviewing this list of Social Media Marketing examples from Peter Kim. 

Check out this video on YouTube that shows how Best Buy is building social media into the company culture - allowing employees to communicate freely with each other, share ideas, collaborate, and build company culture.

We read a lot of great stuff from really smart people on topics related to internal-external marketing alignment. As we find articles and posts that are useful in this discussion, we’ll post them regularly in our Focus Friday.

This week we’ve been spending a lot of time looking at how companies can leverage Twitter to build their brand. It’s a great tool for listening to and communicating with customers and employees, and it can go a long way toward helping you achieve internal-external marketing alignment.  Here are some interesting articles to get you thinking about Twitter and understanding how you can leverage its power to align your brand and grow your business:

From CoTweet.com:  Making Brands Human on Twitter

From Chris Brogan: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

From Fortune: Twitter Means Business

From Mashable:  Finding the Right Brand Voice on Twitter

From PCWorld: Twitter Quitters Just Don’t Get It