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Hi there, it’s Joe Bencharsky with Webtraction. I’m doing a little presentation here on
social media: what and why.
I realized when talking to business people and clients that a lot of people really don’t
have a grasp on what social media is and how to use it effectively for the business. But,
don’t feel alone.
The professionals are in the same boat.
A lot of companies are spending a lot of time doing trial and error on what works and what
doesn’t work in social media.
The base point here is having a strategy understanding what it is and what your goals are and how
you achieve them.
That’s why I consult on that topic because that’s the biggest stumbling block people
have.
Now you’ll see here, I have a diagram that was created at the end of 2010, showing some
of the top social media sites.
Now, some of these you may not qualify as social media, depending on how you define
it, but if you look down at the bottom, you’ve got Yelp, that would qualify as social media
because you have people posting comments and sharing Google, not necessarily, and Yahoo
Groups.
Well, Google added a social media service called Google+1 recently, which is sort of
a competition for Facebook and has been growing very fast. Some of these that you will recognize
under social networks you’ve got Facebook and MySpace you’ve got Micromedia you’ve
got Twitter you’ve got blog communities social bookmarking, photo sharing, video sharing,
music sharing, events sites, all of these as you can see, the creator of this graphic
centered around the conversation.
The conversation is one of several approaches to social media.
The way I break it down is social media has three purposes.
One is which is not social media in an end to itself, is for search engine optimization
(SEO). People want to create a bigger footprint for their business, and create links back
to their website. So, they create a LinkedIn profile and a Twitter campaign, or Twitter
profile, and a Facebook page and an Ecademy profile, or whatever you’re participating
in.
These are not designed to be entities unto themselves, or to be forums for interacting
with people. They are designed to create links back to your site and give you more space
on search results, so that when somebody types in your business name, you get more of you.
That is not a social media strategy, that is a SEO strategy and I’d say, a good 90%
of people who are using social media, are doing it for that purpose.
It can be somewhat effective.
If you Google yourself these days, one of the first page top results that comes up,
is LinkedIn, because LinkedIn has good authority.
If your name is recognizable and searchable on LinkedIn, it’s going to come up within
the top five for sure.
Another strategy for social media is the conversation, which we are talking about here.
In Unmarketing, Scott Stratten says, “Social media is about conversation, you shouldn’t
even ask about return.” Well, does anybody ask about return on an investment when they’re
having a conversation with a potential client?
No, but you have to realize that solopreneurs have limited time and limited energy to engage
in these, so there has to be some type of value that you’re getting back on this.
Whether you call it return on engagement, whether you call it engaging your existing
clientele, all of these go back to the strategy: what are your goals; where are you speaking;
is your audience really where you think it is; are you just Twittering to void, or are
potential clients out there listening and responding and are your existing clients listening
and responding.
So reason #1: SEO.
Reason 2: Engagement.
Reason three Establishing yourself as a professional.
Creating social media presences and profiles is a great way to establish yourself as an
expert in your field.
Engaging on third-party blogs, regardless of whether you have a blog or not; engaging
in groups on LinkedIn; engaging in conversations on Twitter; if you have a very focused approach,
and you know that the people you want to be talking to are listening in those forums,
then those are great ways to do it in very little time.
I recently did the first of a series I’m doing with preneurWorld, you can find it on
You Tube, called Social Media in Six Minutes a Day for the Solopreneur.
And you can do things that are very simple and very straightforward, I can set up programs
for you, I can walk you through things, but the main thing is realizing this is an extension
of your existing marketing strategy; it is not an answer unto itself. And the people
who say, well, you need to, you have to have a Facebook page, have a Twitter account…you
don’t need you don’t have.
They have to have specific goals; otherwise they are a waste of time.
Really.
The one thing you want to be doing is listening for the conversation and there are tools you
can use very simply that can be monitoring the Web for when people are talking about
you and you want to know about it.
If they are having a conversation, you want to be tuned into it, because they may be saying
something negative that you don’t like. Maybe somebody is posting negative reviews
on Yelp about you. Maybe they’re posting something negative on another site, maybe
Facebook is where the conversation is happening.
There are tools that you can turn on and leave go that sort of do a base reputation management.
You can also do a more robust program, which I can help you with.
But the main thing again, comes back to, what results do you want to achieve and are you
getting them, and how do you use these very powerful tools to get what you want as a small
business person.
So, before you go off and open all the accounts in the world, and sometimes they sit there,
and you don’t have a blog for six months and people wonder if you are still in business,
you’d rather not have that linked to your business.
That’s creating a bad reputation if you’re not engaging. So, rather than having it and
not using it, use what you do have but make sure it’s effective.
That’s Part 1 on social media and how to use it.
http://www.webtraction.net/