Nielson Wire reports that social networks now account for every 4.5 minutes online. So it might make sense to for you to start incorporating a social media strategy into your marketing plan. Before you do you need to realize that this takes time to develop, implement and execute,most of all it takes patience.
Rome wasn’t built overnight!
Effective social media campaigns take time, but the time you spend will have measurable results. Start with dedicating 30 minuets to your efforts. This allows you to focus on your task at hand and not get overwhelmed. Don’t get frustrated if something either doesn’t work or takes longer than you expect it to work. In time you will start seeing what works well and what doesn’t.
Social media is more than just being social, its about building relationships, learning, sharing and communicating. Too often I see people on Twitter, tweeting about themselves or their brand and then about themselves and their brand.
Social media is about conversation! Take some time to talk to someone and get to know them. Tweet things that you find interesting and retweet great content. Here are some great ideas to help you utilize your time wisely for maximum impact.
- Don’t try to become an expert of all things social media at once find one and master that first. In my case I choose to start with and focus on Twitter.
- Make sure to follow your twitter stream, tweet and retweet great content.
- If someone engages you make sure to respond, remember social media means being social. Same rules apply on social media sites as in real life.
- Read blogs and respond, don’t be afraid to give your opinion you have a voice use it.
- Retweet the blogs you comment on this gives props to the author and will also get you noticed.
- Create a blog, there are many blog platforms on the market my blog platform of choice is a self hosted Word Press blog.
- Create great content, share great content
- Join groups on Linked in and Facebook engage people in a conversation or start one.
- Follow people that have influence or play a prominent role in the areas that interest you, you never know they may respond to you. (Twitter gave me the opportunity to have a small conversation with Kelsey Gramer and a variety of others I would never had the opportunity to speak to)
- Let people know your real and post a picture of yourself
- Have a personality nobody likes boring content, boring posts, and most of all boring people
- Do not spam, Its OK to self promote just be conscious of how much self promoting your doing.
I am interested to hear what you think!
I’m looking forward to your book as well. I’m excited take the journey to find a “voice” for social media.
Michael Walker actually helped me edit it and should be available shortly. I will let you know when it is complete.
Best kept secrets usually wind of going out of business. Case in Point, my old business. Best kept secrets are not sustainable during a a slow season. For me, summer was a horrible time, most of my clientele summered on the cape or left for extended vacations. If you own and operate a business you need to shout out your message and tell anybody that will listen. Its about cultivating champions for your brand!
agree with you about using twitter and promotions through twitter. we have gain good results through twitter many times. Thanks for sharing good information
Thank you for the comment would you mind sharing a bit about your Twitter strategy and some of the results that you obtained.
Thanks for the advice on twitter. Its been a little tough to figure the best way to utilize it and articles like yours help stimulate ideas. I’ve been working on the blogging piece myself since january after listening to the audio book Inbound Marketing by two of the founders of hubspot and its definitely not an over night success venture. It takes work and commitment, but as you’ve said a daily investment here will pay dividends. Your advice holds true to the advice that some of the top innovators in marketing are publishing so… keep it coming.
Hey Joel I am actually writing a ebook on how to use Twitter for small businesses if your interested I can send it to you once I am done. I will be giving it to my clients and would love your thoughts and on it
Awesome, send it. Can’t wait to see it.