Social Media Landscape
In today’s blogtalkradioshow, I shared my insight about first understanding your reasons for utilizing social media tools and harnessing the power of social media by asking yourselves a list of the questions. Your answers will determine the course of action and help you come up with content designed specifically for your clients and prospects. Understanding your own objectives will help you define your goals for using social media to enhance your online presence. We all want to enhance our presence, grow our business, form our partnerships and get new clients. It’s a good idea to have a plan, then create your social media infrastructure, connect them to appropriate tools and organize your editorial calendar. When your infrastructure is in place, along with tools, it is so much easier to plan and execute your marketing plans, while creating new connections and fostering relationships.
Most people think that Social Media is an instant fix, it is not. Social Media offers us ways to connect with more people across multiple channels in a short amount of time, and I say “Make the Most of Your Time” by being a person of value, honor, and resources. Use these platforms to enable people to know you and form lasting partnerships. Granted, we want the sale, but don’t make it about the sale.
I can’t tell you countless of times, when I show up whether in person or online, sharing content that helped me, offering advice, tips, and resources, how rewarding it felt to me to leave people off better than I found them, but to learn later that they had referred me to a friend or acquaintance.
Approaching social media sites with the mindset of “how can I help people know, like and trust me” , will provide you fodder for blog posts, tweets, creating your own personalized questions and quotes.
- use WordTracker and Google keyword tool : when you type in a specific key word or a long tail keyword, results will appear that will indicate popularity, density and what people are actually looking for. This has helped me decide how to frame my blog posts – this is a good tactic to “add value, educate and inform” your audience. It’s extremely helpful to know and understand what people actually need and want, so you can beat them to the punch.
- using the Google Search box, typing in a key word or long tail keyword will show you who’s in that space, what their angle is, and you can write your own version while linking to that specific article (great for link backs)
- check out niche forum sites, Facebook groups, and learn what people need and want. You can write a blog post addressing their issues, then comment on the walls or in the forums adding that you just finished writing the blog post. With this tactic, I would exercise judgment because you don’t want to self promote, but position yourself as the solution – if they want to read your blog they will either click on your profile to learn more about you or ask for that link. I’d share your blog post within relevant Linkedin groups, bookmark it on Delicious, Reddit, Digg and Stumbleupon (and depending on the nature of the blog, several other sites (check out OnlyWire.com)
It is in the “overwhelm” that paralyzes us and makes up stuck, but if we break it down step by step from setting up your foundation to answering your own questions pertaining to the What, When, Where, How and Who, you will be able to design a successful social media plan and be able to execute it seamlessly.
I think the main issue people are running into when they attempt to utilize social media, particularly for business, is that they talk at people instead of engaging with them.