Go Social and Build Business' goal is to help individuals and companies leverage online social media websites to increase their business. Over the past three years, I have worked with over 3,000 employees and independent contractors to help them develop their online and social media presence.
The tips provided by Go Social and Build Business offer proven practices to help individuals build their personal business.
A Guide to getting started on Social Media/Networking
Since 2006 the growth of social media has exploded, and the number of sites available, how to best utilize them and understanding how can they improve your business activity without wasting a lot of time can be overwhelming.
Social media an take many different forms, including Internet forums, web blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowd sourcing, and voice over IP.
Examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing) and Twitter (microblogging). Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like TweetDeck, Mybloglog and Plaxo.
Here are some initial tips that I have developed to help assist you in getting started.
Before You Do Anything: RESEARCH
You need to do a little research and some planning to develop an effective and visible social presence. You need to know what others in your field are doing on blogs, Twitter and Facebook before you get started. You need to add value to the online conversation, not just noise. Knowing where you can add worth is essential.
It is recommended that you do the following:
Wade into the pool -- don't dive into the deep end. Begin reading blogs and following others on Twitter to get your feet wet. Find blogs and Twitter topics that interest you and are related to your industry to get a sense of discussion topics. Since it is about business you want to find social sites that will work for you and your business.
Find your competition. Perform a Google blog search. Google allows you to search by blogs only, and you should search terms that are related to your industry.
Here is a good example of researching your competition: Say you are a real estate agent, you will want to find Real Estate blogs in the geographic area you serve. Upon typing in San Francisco Real Estate, Google returned
1. The San Francisco Real Estate Blog
2. San Francisco real estate tips, trends and the local scoop: "Plug...
3. Real Estate in the San Francisco Bay Area | 3 Oceans Real Estate...
4. San Francisco Real Estate
5. San Francisco real estate insight, statistics, gossip, and news...
Create a plan on how you are going to use social media. This is the hardest part, but the path you choose with respect to online networking needs to be thought out and scheduled as part of your daily marketing activities. You need to have a goal for each social media platform you incorporate into your strategy, and you must consider how you will measure success.
1. LinkedIn - to connect with other professionals.
2. Facebook - to stay connected to your sphere.
3. Blog - to promote your service or product; Blogger, Typepad or WordPress.
4. Twitter - to promote your social media presence.
Five Steps to Getting Started
1. Create profiles on social sites. There are a couple dozen sites you may sign-up for to increase your social profile, but it is suggested that you use only the ones that you can keep up with and in which you have an interest. The key to social media is being active; you need to participate to build credibility in the communities. If you have already established profiles go back and look at them, as a client would view them. Remember in this day and age clients are likely to "Google you" or look your profile up on these social sites. Here are three to get you started:
1. LinkedIn - has a business tone and is a good site to build professional networks. A great place to get vendors you work with to recommend you, and in turn you may recommend their services.
2. Facebook - more social in nature and very good for keeping in touch with your sphere of influence.
3. Twitter - microblogging site that can be used to update clients about open homes or new homes on the market. Also you can post cool things you see happening in a market, as long as it is 140 characters or less.
2. Start a blog. What is a "blog"? Well, since you are reading a blog I know you can find one. A "blog" is an abbreviated version of "web blog," which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other web sites. Blogs range from personal to political in nature, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects. Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. Still others are more like personal journals, presenting the author's daily life and thoughts. Once you decide where you are going to host your blog you will need to take the following development steps to set up a blog that works.
* Identify the focus of blog (topic, geographic area).
* Begin to link to other sites.
* Create a profile page. This is extremely important, as it adds credibility to your blog. The profile should contain information that reflects your blog. For example: "I serve Alameda, CA and am interested in the real estate trends that impact our community."
* Link to at least 10 other bloggers that you find interesting and your readers will find interesting. The more links the better because this helps optimize your blog.
* Once you have liked to these other blogs send an email to the authors, letting them know you are an avid reader and you hope they will add your blog to their blog roll.
* Develop and stick to a posting schedule, for example, every Monday or every Tuesday and Thursday.
3. Create a matching YouTube channel. Even if you do not use it, you will not want someone else to use your blog name on YouTube. For example:
* Blog "(examplecompany.blogspot.com/)
* YouTube Channel (youtube.com/user/examplecompany)
4. Connect your blog with your social sites. Include your social site profile links within your Contact page. Set up RSS feed, (RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works-such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video-in a standardized format) of your blog on the social sites; these will automatically update your social sites with your blog posts. Also, use the Facebook blog application to automatically post to your Facebook profile.Use photos and videos in blog when possible. Google gives more credibility to blogs that use these elements. Be careful not to download and post to your site copyrighted material. Use the embed feature on YouTube.
5. Use photos and videos in blog when possible. Google gives more credibility to blogs that use these elements. Be careful not to download and post to your site copyrighted material. Use the embed feature on YouTube.
Once you are ready to get started, have fun experimenting with what social sites can do to help drive and build your business.
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