ROI is a three letter word. (Or technically an acronym….) Either way, many people fall into one of two camps: the “you can’t measure ROI on social media” camp or the “Look at the monkey!” camp. The first throws up their hands and keeps going because someone told them to. The second is in a state of denial, terrified by the idea of numbers and what they might show. But measuring your social media ROI doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. Here are some things you can measure and how you can track them to your benefit.

So many social channels, so little time! You *want* to share great content but you’re overwhelmed doing a million different things and you just don’t have the time to invest in sorting, curating, vetting and posting interesting content. And even if you do have the time… it’s easy to hit a dead end and sit there staring at your empty Buffer or queue, wondering what to post next. Stop worrying! There are plenty of (really, really easy) ways to find content. Here are a few… and with a little practice these will become second nature so that you’ll be a content creating and curating machine. Read on, and let me know which one you’re going to try RIGHT NOW.

An engineering manager who uses LinkedIn at work complained to me about people on the site who annoy him–or to quote him directly–“creep me out.” Find out how you can make productive connections and avoid being a lurker or a stalker on the new LinkedIn for business.

There are complaints that occasionally make it to my ears… and computer monitor… about how marketers and businesses have “taken over” Pinterest. It’s supposed to be fun, people argue. It’s supposed to be cool stuff to look at and not another advertising opportunity. They have a point. But you don’t have to be a party pooper to use Pinterest for business. Here are some ways to get you pinning smarter, faster and with style so you can drive traffic to your website and even make sales.

The modern face of SEO is no longer about manipulating Search engine spiders, stuffing content with as many keywords as possible or threading the web with as many spammed links to your website as you can. Instead, the optimization environment has changed and things have become much more human focused than they have ever been before. Here are some trends in social media that can help you boost your website search performance

LinkedIn is growing in membership, and has added both cosmetic changes like larger photos and new features such as Endorsements, dubbed by Forbes magazine “the Stove Top Stuffing of recommendations.” Here I focus on making your profile and business pages stronger and more visible to search engines so you’ll be found.

If you haven’t used Foursquare for business then you probably know it as that annoying thing you see in your Facebook and Twitter feeds that’s constantly telling you who “checked in” where. Fortunately, Foursquare has rolled out tools that make being a user a little more fun and a business a little more interesting. Here are some pros and cons of using Foursquare to market your local business and a few tips you can use to get started.

Facebook business pages are free; every business can have one. That fact cuts two ways. Your business can have a well-crafted marketing Facebook business page that matches, compliments and supports its brand or your business can be the subject of this article. Here are five things to consider so your page isn’t an embarrassment to your business.

Whether Pinterest is right for your business is something to consider before you pin, so assuming you’ve already done your homework and decided to give it a shot, here’s how you can make the most of this popular and highly visual medium.

On an annual study on social media dated March of this year, a whopping 81 percent of women from the general US population said that they trusted Pinterest and blogs. This is compared to only 67 percent of women who said that they trusted Facebook and 73 percent who said they trusted Twitter. As such, we can see that Pinterest is a great resource and tool for a company’s marketing efforts. As a beginner user, here’s how you can use this social media space for your benefit.