Legacy Web Plus Social Media Integration

Turn your e-mail into a social media tool! 

Our basic service builds around the Posterous Autopost method to integrate your legacy web services (e-mail and website) with Web 2.0 social media services.  Our approach allows you to keep your legacy systems while adding a Web 2.0 (social media) customer engagement cloud. The beauty of social media is exactly that.  It's social. Your customers share your content with their communities, thereby broadening your reach. They also interact directly with you. Legacy web systems require that the customer come to your web site.  With Web 2.0, you push the content to the customer!

As Easy as Sending an E-mail

The advantage of our Legacy Plus service is the hassle free content development approach, which is as easy as sending an e-mail. At its core is the flexibility to create content in the form of a simple e-mail message.  Something you practically do everyday, and that you are familiar with.  All you have to do is create e-mailed based content, which is then shared everywhere and anywhere on the web, maximizing your customer engagement. Our approach is ideal for integrating with existing e-mail distribution lists, particulary newsletters that are currently e-mail distributed. 

Public Integration - Everywhere and Anywhere on The Web

So you can post anywhere and everywhere on the web, using a simple e-mail.  What does that mean?  The "anywhere and everywhere" part of this is defined by you. We setup your interface based on where you want your content and information posted.  There are a variety of social media channels, including blogs, social networks and rich media sharing sites (for more detail go to this article).

Let's say you choose to setup (or already have) a Blog, a Twitter, a Facebook, a YouTube, a Flickr and a LinkedIn account. Instead of having to interact and post to each of these individually, you can now integrate the whole process into one. Each time you post something, it will go to all these channels, where your respective "follower" audiences will have a chance to view, comment and share your post. With our system, also have the flexibility to direct a specific post to a single channel, or combination of channels. If you send just photos, and no text, they can be posted in your blog gallery, as well as on Flickr.

Note, the system can be setup to be private and internalized (see "Private Integration - Internalized Group Blog/Mailing Lists" below.)

We Create a Workflow That’s Convenient and Not Labor Intensive

Content Development Steps

Step 1 - Prepare a Post - Say Something

You have a choice of five ways to post content. 

Email: Just type a regular e-mail.  The subject line becomes the post’s title.  The text in the e-mail body becomes the narrative part of the post.  Images/photos can be embedded within the body of the post. Attach rich media files like photos, videos or music and they also become part of the post. Music (MP3) files and video files are playable in the page of the post. Other files such as PDFs and Word documents become viewable within the body of the blog post. Links work as pasted. The system we use supports automatically embedding content from many popular sites, services, and types of files. Embedding the URL to the content keeps the visitor on your blog post while viewing the content (video, listen to audio, or read a document). The link is automatically embedded by simply including a URL to the content in your post. Want to show a location on a Google map, paste the URL into your post. Formatting is pretty simple too. The formatting you apply in the email is used. Bold text is shown as bold. Everything essentially looks as was sent in the email.  If you want to make changes, no worries. Just log into your account and you'll get access to a traditional blog text editor. Adding tags is easy too (you'l want to add add tags so your blogs can be organized and accessed according to subject).  Add them to the end of the subject like this ((tag: Easy, Blog, Test)). And if you have nothing to say, that's ok too. Just type a title in the subject line, attach a set of photos, and the rest is taken care of for you. The photos will e arranged into a gallery in the blog, or posted on Flickr. 

Bookmarklet:  You will have access to a bookmarklet which sits in your browser’s bookmarks bar.  It allows you to grab any content from the web and post it; Select any text, video, music or photos you like. Again, you can post it privately so you can edit it using the editor before posting it publicly.  This is a great way to queue a series of posts (during a slow day at the office, or while waiting for a flight) for future release (the editor allows you to queue posts).

iPhone App:  The approach we use also offers an iPhone app which makes it effortless to share your thoughts, photos, and videos from just about anywhere.   

Blog Editor: The more conventional method is to use a blog-style WYSIWYG editor when you log into your account.  Its a straight forward editor, and what you see is what you get.  You can also try your hand at HTML to further format the post. But there should be little reason to do so as this Legacy Plus approach is intended for the "not so" blogger.  

SMS: You can also send messages via SMS from your mobile phone.  

Step 2 - The Post is Emailed

You press the send button. The email most is sent to an auto-post platform for formatting and processing. 

Content Distribution Steps

Step 3 - The Post is Processed

Once you send the post (post it), it is formatted and processed for posting through the various channels you have chosen.  This happens automatically.  Again, if you prefer not to autopost, you have control over when and where the information is posted.  You can control this via the email message or through the online editor.  

Step 4 - The Post is Auto-Posted to the Web Media Sharing Services

The post is distributed to the various prescribed channels, based on the setting or the e-mail instructions. Posts can be held private for further formatting or editing. or they can be scheduled for later distribution.  There is flexibility to limit posting to prescribed channels, on a post-by-post basis. You can basically email/import content from any web platform, and push your content out to any social site where you have a following.

Audience Engagement Steps

The primary services for gaining audience exposure are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. TransportSMS uses a highly intuitive method to build a Twitter following that is precisely targeted to the client’s product. It is with this proprietary blend of software and specialized knowledgethat TransportSMS builds you a thriving presence on Twitter, and a following that responds to what you offer. We follow the 90-9-1 rule.  90% of the audience is along for the ride. 9% participates and shares.  And 1% actually contributes, comments and engages in your content.  TransportSMS will assist you in developing your audience. We focus on quality and not quantity. We help you focus on the audience most likely to be attracted to your service and product. 

Step 5 - Your Content is Viewed, Shared and Receives Feedback 

This is where the real power of social media comes into play. Depending on the power of the content, it creates a level of buzz.  And buzz has no scale.  It can be as little as one or two mentions, or it could can be a wild viral spread.  As long as there is a level of activity. As long as your content is being viewed, shared and mentioned, you have buzz.

In terms of the 90-9-1 rule, this is the 9% of your audience that views and shares your content.

Step 6 - Engage With Your Audience 

In addition to sharing your content, you want your audience to provide feedback back to you.  This gives you the opportunity to engage directly with your audience. This is where the 1% of the 90-9-1 rule comes into play.  You want to engage that 1% and convert them into sales.        

Convert Buzz into Leads/Sales/Contracts/Program Funding

Step 7 - Traffic is Directed to Your Legacy Customer Engagement Services

The goal is to direct customers to you. By pushing your content into social media services, you increase the opportunity for engaging with customers directly in the channels they participate in.  Social media networks are organized and structured to allow you to target specific channels that optimize engagement with the optimal audience mix for you. This interaction ultimately directs traffic back to your legacy systems - legacy website, email, phone, etc.     

Alternative Integration - Internalized Group Blog/Mailing Lists

You don't have to go public. This is an ideal system for running an internalized group email/blog list.  For organizations and associations who create email lists to share content, for project teams to collaborate and share multimedia content, and for group mailing lists, allowing the members of the list to share, collaborate and comment internally.  To add contributors, you input their email addresses. Once you add them, they won’t need an account to contribute to the group blog and can accomplish everything — posting, viewing, and comments — via email. The group blog/email list can be password protected or public.