Work it Wednesday – spend the day to day with your nose to the grindstone! This is the day we often call “Hump Day” and once we pass this it is all down hill the rest of the week! Get all those pesky tasks done and off your scheduled task list as well as ones off your traveling task list – power through it so you can finish work early on Friday! How is your Tickler File helping out?
Are you using Social Media to share your message?
By now you should know that Social Media is not a phase and it is not going away. It is not going to loose it’s “luster” and it is not going to die out. If you are not using it to connect with your audience you are missing a BIG BOAT!
There are several Social Media websites/communities Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Plaxo just to name a small few…
When joining or using Social Media communities to share your message it is important to go into it with the right frame of mind. These are SOCIAL MEDIA communities, not let me vomit my products & services on everyone communities. These are places to be social, create relationships and build bonds. Social Media communities has brought the world closer together where people that are like minded can connect, where people with needs can look for answers, where you can find people you have lost contact with. In the Social Media platforms know from the beginning how you want to interact with people, the strongest Social Media presence “foundations” are built organically and are nurtured. There is a lot of interaction needed by the Social Media profile owner to start out – posting on walls, messaging people back, creating a guide to what kind of people you want to be connected with but once it gets going the Social Media process sets in.
What you say is important – what do you want to be known for when people in the Social Media community talk about you? Social Media is a place where you can educate people. Social Media is a place where you can inspire people. Social Media is where you can offer specials and give-aways to people. What is your Social Media presence going to be built around? Be consistent with your Social Media message – meaning go into all of the Social Media communities you belong to sharing the same style of message so you build a reputation. (remember you don’t have to be in ALL of the Social Media communities, start small master them and move out to more as you get comfortable – remember organic is best)
If you are a service provider, lets say a business coach – search different groups for people that might be having business issues and make a couple great suggestions. If you are an event planner look for people who are talking about hosting an event or even just got engaged, offer some neat tips or suggestions and start a relationship. I love Social Media for network marketers – people that are in companies like Pampered Chef or Isagenix or Melaleuca (so many more to name…) they all have messages with their companies and products – ones w can all benefit from – like a recipe that can be shared once a week, or a health tip once a week, or a chemical agent warning or cleaning tip, just share it! This is Social Media!
Social Media Management and Assistance…
Don’t let Social Media get you overwhelmed! You can hire an assistant to help out managing your Social Media accounts – I send a word of caution on this. Be sure YOU still have a hand it in as well. Assistants can handle wishing Happy Birthday to people on Social Media platforms for you. They can go through your Social Media “email messages” and clear out junk and inform you of ones that need your attention. They can find friends/followers and accept requests too AS LONG as you have clearly defined the type of profiles you would be associated with. They can also do some status updates (as long as you have given guidelines so it sounds like you).
People like to do business with people they know – Social Media gives us the forum to get to know A LOT of people. And again it is Social Media, if you have someone else managing all of your interaction while people think it is you – they are being duped and it can come back to bite you later.
It sounds like a lot of work but really you can pack it down to about 30 mins a day using the right tools and keeping focused on why you are on these sites. The important thing is to remember – it is Social Media be Social not always a salesman.
Social Media Tools You Can Use
Working with tools that interact with your social media platforms is a great way to not only help get presence but to also save time and be more productive! We are all about productivity here!!! You can find tools to use in the IMToolSuite package that assist you in creating a Facebook page (a business “fan/like” page) that will have a welcome page people need to “like” before they can enter as well as once they “like” it they are delivered a free gift, also found in IMToolSuite. You can create and manage as many Facebook pages in the system you need. There is a Facebook greeter located in the tools in IMToolSuite too – you create a great message and when you accept a “friend” request on your personal profile it will automatically post a message on their Social Media Facebook wall (the one you created). Awesome and we love using these tools here!
Another great tool we use is PING this is a site where you can put in all of your Social Media communities you belong to and do ONE posting and “ping” them all at once! We don’t over use this tool – we do believe there are some messages that go to specific Social Media communities and not the others – we we use this when it is a message that benefits them ALL. Ping.fm has 28 different Social Media communities you can link to. It is a time saver!
If you use Twitter in your Social Media communities, you can set up a SocialOmph account – the free version will let you schedule “tweets” and also set up an auto reply for people that “follow you” with a personal message you create – LOVE IT too! The paid version will let you do more but I suggest checking into it!
For Social Media Facebook users – you can connect your twitter account with your Facebook so when you Tweet, it pushes to Facebook as well. (TIP: if you do create the relationship between Twitter and Facebook and you sign up for Ping account don’t put both Twitter and Facebook on it – just Twitter – because you will end up with two copies of your posting on your Social Media Facebook wall).
For finding people in the Social Media Facebook platform with specific interests or locations to better do business with them – use the Facebook Advanced Search feature…
This is just a few of the Social Media tools out there to help you out. These are pretty basic and have great instructions to follow to get set up quickly. Check them out, register – use the free trial times and the free accounts to get acquainted and move into paid versions as you get more familiar with them! The important thing is you get set up!