Alex Krasne is Contributing Strategic Consultant to Channel Maven Consulting. Read on to get some valuable tips she offers for managing your editorial calendars.

This week, I’ll be in Las Vegas. When I’m not at the blackjack tables, or working on my tan by the pool (if you could see my pasty legs you’d know I was kidding), I’ll be presenting at VMware’s Partner Exchange.

I’ll be leading two sessions on Tuesday afternoon: one covering social media basics, the other detailing advanced social media and content marketing practices. Looking forward to teaching VMware partners some tips and tricks to boost their social and marketing efforts.

Here are some highlights and tips from my materials.

1) Define your goals.
Before you get started, think about the results you want to achieve, how your social media goals map to the overall company goals. Be sure that your goals are realistic, given the resources you have.

2) Leverage what’s unique about your company: the people!
Make your employees and coworkers the stars of your social media efforts. No one wants to see a nameless, faceless company sharing updates. So put your people in videos, share their voices in tweets, and ask them to inject their personalities and personal insights in blog posts.

3) Use free metrics tools to measure success.
Use Topsy to measure reach of Twitter and Google+ and check out HootSuite for real-time monitoring of Twitter. HootSuite can also schedule tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Facebook updates so they’ll post around the clock (or so you can relax).

Whether you attended VMware Partner Exchange or not, I’m giving away one tool of my own to help you with your efforts: an editorial calendar. It’s an Excel spreadsheet to help you feel like a publisher so you can keep track of tweets, Google+ posts, LinkedIn updates, blog posts, well you get the idea.

You can download it here. Let us know if it helps.

And please post your favorite social media questions or tools below. We’re here to help.

P.S.  check out the rest of the Channel Maven team at booth #1204 for the Social Media Rally Station.

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