Social Media 101: Part 5 Why

Why: The last in a five part series


Why do you want to use SM? What are your goals and what do you hope to achieve? If you see it as strictly free advertising and you plan to have only “commercials” people will eventually lose interest, so this is not a wise approach to take. They will be less interested in joining your network or following you if you are posting only sales pitches. However, if you provide useful, accurate information, relevant to the business community, they’ll keep coming back. You will begin to establish yourself as a subject matter expert. This will help you to gain credibility and trust, increasing the chances that a person will want to do business with you.

Additional Tips:
To save time posting a blog:

• Post an article that was written by someone else, just be sure to provide a link to the original article and give credit to the person wrote it. You can then give your commentary on the topic of the article or find a way to relate the information to local trends or challenges.
• Ask colleagues to be “guest bloggers” by writing articles for you to post, again giving them credit and adding their byline and link to their website. Using links is a good way to drive additional traffic to their site so it’s a good trade-off.
• Nick Francesco of http://www.asknick.com/ said, “A blog gets people’s attention and Twitter keeps it.” I think that’s a great analogy, consider using these two outlets together.

Other tidbits:

• Many SM outlets have useful technical features, functions, and gadgets. Don’t let these scare you. Start slowly with the basic functions and gradually build up to incorporating the more high-tech components.
• Be sure to incorporate SM in your overall marketing plan. Don’t make it just an after-thought. As part of your marketing plan, you will be more likely to actually using it and keep it in the forefront of your activities.
• If you plan to maintain your SM outlets yourself, put it on your schedule and be sure that you stick to that schedule. This will help you be more regular and disciplined about keeping things updated.

Social Media 101: Part 4 - When

When - This is the forth in a five part series.

First, determine how much time can be allocated to your SM presence. It is important that content is current and relevant. You should have a regular presence, meaning update your information on a regular basis. Nick Francesco of www.asknick.com says that by doing this, people will come to understand that you will be there, ready to share your knowledge, on a regular basis. People will begin to get more comfortable and familiar with you. The amount of time you can commit will help you determine which SM outlet you can begin with as some take more time to manage than others. A blog, for example, requires new content on a regular basis and the content is longer than what you would post to Twitter and other outlets. Tips on saving time will be shared with you as we compile them.

Will conclude this series with discussing why you want to use social media.