Social media can be a valuable addition to your online presence, but it doesn’t happen all by itself. There is a lot more to using social media than just having your accounts set up; no one is interested in an account that shows no activity!
There are good and bad ways to use your social media accounts; don't post just anything for the sake of posting! We’ve all seen businesses that use their Facebook pages or Twitter feeds as spam factories; this type of usage often results in your followers hiding your feed or just de-friending or unfollowing you. Don’t think of your accounts as ways to push advertising, think of them as ways to make connections with people. You can do this by providing information about your business along with other links, ideas, pictures, events, etc.
Simple things that you can do with Facebook
- Take a few minutes a day to post on Facebook about upcoming open houses, local events, local charities, etc. Even one post every second or third day will make your account look active.
- Add new clients and contacts to your Facebook to slowly build up your cache of Facebook friends.
- Add details like hours of operation, address, phone number, and website url to your Facebook information so that people can easily look that up.
Simple things that you can do with Twitter
- Tweet a few times a day, when you have time. Don't spam people with tweets from you though; no one likes to be spammed.
- Connect your Twitter to your Facebook account so that all of your tweets show up on Facebook so you don't have to do both.
- Use Twitter (and/or Facebook) to link to new pages on your site (with a comment inviting people to take a look), or invite people to read your latest blog post!
Simple things that you can do with blogs
- Post about workshops/classes that you're taking (or that people on your team are taking) to let people know that you’re furthering your knowledge and expanding your specializations.
- Share information about upcoming events in your area (show yourself to be the expert on local events!)
- Share a write up about events that have just passed, include pictures if possible. If you have a great post about a local event, people might link to it and get you some more traffic. Posts like this can also be informative for people looking to move to the area.
- Showcase your charitable works! Many people look favorably on hiring someone who they can see is concerned with social issues instead of just making a buck.
It is likely that these are not all of the social media sites that you’re hooked up to, but these guidelines are pretty universal; it all comes down to being engaging and providing your connections with useful or entertaining information. Even if you have hired someone to do the social networking for your office or business, ask what additional elements you can take on yourself to make the whole endeavour more effective.
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There are currently 4 Responses to this blog entry.
REW Tracy
Great post, Lisa. I really like this part, "it all comes down to being engaging and providing your connections with useful or entertaining information." So true!
9 Blog Posts To Help You Be More Effective Online - Rew Lisa's Blog
Tarek Safadi
That's great advice, there is nothing worse than people who tweet just to tweet and use it to update us all on every single thing that happens in their life.
RachelVanderveen
Simple stuff, but very valuable. Also very convicting....GOTSTA work on my social media.