Using Social Media to Spread Your Message
Social Media: Coffee-shop Complement?
Social Media is an interesting beast, especially when it comes to using it for your business. I admit, though I have a pretty good grasp of some of the advantages it offers for both me and my business, there’s a lot I’m still trying to figure out. If you’re considering a social media blitz in order to spread your business message around the planet, I’ve put together some food for thought and techniques you can follow to make sure you’re doing it effectively.
Will your audience be listening?
Consider the service you’re trying to promote before getting yourself involved in a social media campaign for your business. While nothing is too hard about it and it is fun to make connections on the various sites that are out there, it is time consuming and it’s not necessarily something that will show measurable results immediately for your efforts.
Opting in to your message
Most social networking sites offer people the opportunity to “opt in” to your requests, so the information you’re providing is probably just going to get to people you know first. I’ll give you an example of my experience with the professional networking site, LinkedIn. I initially joined several years ago and used it as a tool to keep an online address book of friends and business acquaintances, and as an area where I could list my professional accomplishments and links to my current projects or workplace. The appeal of it to me was that if I changed jobs or moved, I only had to update one place and all those in my network could see things had changed for me the next time they looked me up.
It also was an early promoter of business networking and allowing people to connect to prospects through people you mutually knew. It sets you up for a “warm” sales call with potential clients thanks to your network. People who really turned me off at LinkedIn were those that just asked me to be a connection for the sake of having access to a list of people in my network. I didn’t give them that access, because I didn’t know them. Think about this when you’re building your online network and think about the kinds of things that turn you off when you meet people in person. Would you walk up to someone at a party and ask for access to their business contacts barely after saying hello?
My point is, your social strategy should be about being social, not about making a sale. Allowing people to get to know you in a no-pressure atmosphere is like having an ongoing, casual interview with someone who could eventually become a client, or who might respect your work enough to refer a client to you. The more information you give them about who you are, the more comfortable they will be about sending you business. Because ultimately, it’s their reputation that will be tarnished more if you screw up…not yours.
Make following your business more than just about your business
I know somebody, we’ll call him John D, who posts a link to some business-related content nearly every day on Facebook. He never changes his status, and he never makes any comments on anything else going on with his friends or other connections. If you’re using a social networking medium, it’s important to be social. If you don’t, you will be largely regarded as “missing the point” among your friends/followers, and they just won’t be as interested in following your links because they just don’t know enough about you. You might even be labeled as…boring! A witty comment or two goes a long way at showing your personality and warming people up to the idea of doing business with you or sending business your way.
UPDATE 4/9/09: Just read this great rant over at the Consulting Pulse. The author, Daryl, asks the question, “Why are people so stupid on LinkedIn?” It highlights exactly the kind of LinkedIn requests to avoid sending, and Daryl’s pretty entertaining in his presentation. Be sure to check it out for a nice little etiquette lesson!
Curb your enthusiasm
There are, of course, a few topics to avoid in a public forum such as a Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Don’t ever talk about something too religious or political that you wouldn’t say directly to a client. Remember, social media means that anyone following your updates can read what you’ve written, and the pictures you posted of your bachelor/bachelorette party for your friends to see could end up on a missed opportunity’s computer screen if you’re not careful.
Also keep in mind that a lot of the information you have on these sites is probably archived, and be sure to understand the “Terms of Use” policy for the sites. You may recall a few weeks ago a huge stink when Facebook changed its terms of use to allow it perpetual licensed use of any content you put on their site, even if you put it up there and then decided to delete it later. The move was really intended to protect them if one of their members used another member’s copywritten material in an improper way, but it also gave Facebook the right to use any of the material in any way they saw fit, and at any time. I don’t think Facebook was intending on ripping off millions of its users, but still, the ultimate responsible party of the account is you, and you are responsible for knowing what your rights are on the system. Make sure to understand them before posting something you’ll regret. (For more information on the terms of service changes, here’s one site’s take on it.)
The Tools To Use
Most of these will probably be familiar to you if you decide to embark into the world of social media. By no means is this list complete, and I’m sure it will continue to evolve moving forward. But it should give you a good starting point and at least a decent understanding of what’s out there and what you can use to promote your business’ most valuable asset: you!
LinkedIn – A stronghold of business networking, this site was originally modeled after six degrees of separation. I know you, you know him, can you refer me to him? It allows you to keep an online résumé and maintain an online network of friends and colleagues that you can keep up-to-date as your job or physical location changes over time. You can adjust your privacy settings to your liking, so the level of information people know about you can be tuned to your comfort level. Recent additions are “Questions,” in which members can ask questions and then select the best answers based on responses from members, “Company Profiles,” in which you can create a profile for your company that is searchable by members and editable by company employees on LinkedIn, and expanded “Groups” options, which allow you to connect with people who share similar interests but aren’t necessarily connected directly with you.
Facebook – Though MySpace really defined the concept of a personal, online page that’s all about you, Facebook seems to have overtaken it in terms of both popularity and of users. The concept is simple: sign up with an account, find your friends (and email friends you can’t find on the service), and post updates on your status, links that you find interesting, and photos for others’ viewing pleasure. After having “friended” many people I know, some of whom I haven’t seen in ages, I decided to use it as a tool to let people know what I was up to, how I was feeling, and share pictures of my family, but I also use it to let people know when I have a new post on one of my blogs. Not *everyone* will find the blog article interesting, but they can “opt in” and read the article if the summary entices them enough to do so. I’m thankful for however many people end up reading my post, because if I wasn’t on Facebook, exactly 0 of my friends would be reading this right now.
Twitter – This is one I’m still just getting started in, though I’m sure that eventually I’ll be using it more often. The concept of this is simple, really. You have 140 characters to describe exactly what it is you’re doing right now. People can “follow” your “tweets,” keeping them up to date on what you deem important enough to post. Read something in the New York times you think your followers should read? Post a tweet. Have something funny happen that your followers would find entertaining? Post a tweet. It’s a very popular tool in education, and I can see it even as a great tool if you have a mobile workforce. There are probably a ton of other applications I’m not even thinking of right now…but be sure to use the comment form below to tell us how you like to use it.
Blogs – Yes, I’ve already written about blogging here and here, and you can be sure there will be more articles in the future, so I won’t summarize here. Suffice to say it is a great tool to help establish your mastery of social media.
Still don’t get it?
Sam Howat, partner at Bluetux, Inc. and a great web developer I’ve collaborated with in the past, has a post on his blog about explaining social media. It has a link to a video which I think does a really good job of an overview of what Social Media can do for you. If you have the time, check out the video…it’s only about 10 minutes long and worth the watch.
Further reading:
(Please note, unless this is a review on a specific book, I have not necessarily read the books I list for further reading. I simply look for related books on amazon and put them here for your convenience.)
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[...] a little more about using social media to help you get your message out there, check out “Using Social Media to Spread Your Message,” last week’s [...]
[...] face. If you’ve read Avelient’s “The Web and You,” you probably know that we explored the accepted etiquette when establishing your presence in social media, and the most successful members of that community don’t use it as a tool to promote [...]
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Very good article, it was very informative. Building your social media business is getting to know people and letting them get to know you, this is what makes good customer service and keeps them coming back to you. Just launched a new social “value” site and we are getting to know the full impact of the meaning, building your social media platform.