Social Media and your business in 2012 - Get Connected

One of your top business goals for 2012 remains the same as last year - Get connected with social media! This blog post deserves a re-post because now, more than ever, your business needs to connect with your current and prospective customers.

We have all gone to websites that share our interests or that provide needed information. But do we visit those sites often? Generally not very often unless we know there is something new. We may link to a page that updates regularly with news of some sort, a quote/thought of the day, a blog. If we think of it...we may visit. It's sort of a one-way conversation anyway.

Conversely, if we own a website, are we regularly updating the site so it is interesing to visitors? Will they want to come back again and again? 

Additionally, if we want to update our website on a consistent basis, we often have to have our webmasters post the new content and that just feels complicated and costly to do often, and we decide to put it off.

Use Social Media to stay in touch. What if you could stay in touch with what interests you as well as keep others interested in you? And do it instantly yourself. Any time of the day.

There is a big world out there beyond your website. You have influenced the world with your website (or part of that world), but you feel lost in the crowd. Does anyone really see YOU?

• How much of YOU do they really see?
• Do you wish visitors knew more about you?
• What motivates you to do what you do?
• What other interests do you have?
• Could they become interested in visiting you more often?

If you could say something each day, what would it be? Would you feel more connected if there were the possibility of being responded to?

Getting connected - first steps.I'd like to inspire you to play with getting connected.

Pick one (or both) of these social media tools - Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a casual to business casual environment. LinkedIn is a business professional environment. Each has a different voice, and audience.

Just open your account and take baby steps. Begin filling out your profile(s) and have fun with it. What do you want others to know about you? What do you want to be known for? Revisit your profile periodically and update. As you get into this experience, you may want to include more about yourself. It's ok to ease into it a bit.

Look for interesting pages and groups on Facebook and LinkedIn.Next, think about your interests and search Facebook and LinkedIn (FB/LI) for people, groups or organizations for those interests. See what comes up. What looks interesting to you? For instance, I love PBS, so I found the PBS fan page on Facebook. (Facebook fan pages are the equivalent of a business page vs. personal page). Once you add them as a connection, their posts will appear in your account. Instead of going to the PBS website and trying to figure out what is new, they 'feed' information to your account automatically. One connection may lead to another. One interesting group to another interesting group. You'll start thinking, "I wonder if so-and-so is on FB/LI"?

Check in to your Facebook or LinkedIn account and look around. Each day, sign into your account and browse what appears there from your connections. No obligation to read, start by browsing. Watch and listen. When something catches your eye, click on it. And if you are so moved, leave a comment. How does that feel? Do you feel more connected with them because you can do this? Do you also feel more connected to the world at large?

Add tools and look for educational experiences. Look at the tools Facebook and LinkedIn offer. You may be able to add photos, add special links, etc. Look for the Help section. Explore!

Keep the conversation going.  Try saying something of interest every day. What are you working on? Comment about it. Have you attended a special event you'd like to promote? Post it. Do you have a question? Ask it. 

Facebook is a casual place so you are freer there. Think of it as a real-time scrapbook or even a sandbox - posts, comments, photos, links. Connections to interesting things in the world. 

Get creative. Notice what others are doing. You'll start to get a sense of it. What types of things do they post? Do you find their posts interesting, not only because of the content, but because of who they are? Would people who know you find your posts interesting because they know you? Would they be compelled to let others know about you and what you posted?

Eventually you will find your voice within the social media arena.

Don't stress. Take your time, but be consistent. Keep it going. It can be fun!

We have some very good books on our resources page that will give you ideas, explain real world situations and solutions for getting connected, and why you should. And they are fun, easy reading.

Let me know how it goes by posting a comment below.