Don't Be Afraid of Social Media

Social Media scares most of the people I start coaching. I came across this post on London Linked on LinkedIn by Doug Keating of Apex Business Services. It reminder me how I always insist that my clients learn the art of social media before they decide whether they should hire someone to take care of it for them.

Enjoy these 3 tips from Doug!
Sherry Lynn

How’s business? Is it good enough that you can hire someone full-time to look after your social media campaigns? How about part-time? It may get to that point, and congrats when you are there, but, most small business owners don’t have the cash flow to hire a social media manager, and that’s ok. There are many ways that a busy small business owner can keep on top of their social media without their other work falling behind. Let’s talk about three of them:

1. Keep It Simple

There is nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed, so don’t allow yourself to feel that way. Nothing kills a social media campaign faster than the person running it feeling to pressured. Start with one or maybe two sites like linkedin and twitter (this will depend mostly on what you are selling). Once you are used to those then add another. Repeat until you are using all of the sites you think you need too.

2. Be Consistent

People like routines, especially when it comes to social media. You won’t get many to consistently read your blog if you post Wednesday this week, Monday next week, Friday the week after that, etc. Having a regular schedule gives people something to look forward too. A regular schedule also helps to keep your efforts on track and keep you moving forward. Procrastination is a campaign assassin so schedule in your times to write and post and stick to them.

3. Keep At It

Look online and you will find thousands of blogs, twitter accounts, facebook accounts, etc. that have been abandoned. It’s safe to say that these social media accounts aren’t making the owners any money and are not driving much traffic to their website. Social Media is a long term part of your marketing strategy. Very rarely do companies start on social media and find it drives instant traffic and sales, so don’t be discouraged!

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog

The largest social media referrers to my site include Facebook and Twitter. I use HootSuite to post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all at the same time.

Using HootSuite saves time and helps you make sure people see your post. Images inspire clicks, so Facebook tends to pull images from web links. But Facebook and auto-published RSS feeds don’t always choose the image that fits the post.

HootSuite allows you to choose the image you want to share on Facebook. Being able to choose the image you share is important to your branding. This is why I recommend you use HootSuite to simplify sharing your blog posts on multiple platforms.

Using HootSuite to post as your Facebook page and then going to your personal profile to reshare the page’s post helps it to be seen by more people.

While you’re sharing your post, you may as well add LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the “little engine that could” of social media. Other platforms come and go, but LinkedIn keeps chugging along growing every day. For many, it is the main social media platform. So sharing the link there is handy and smart.

Back to Facebook. In the image above, you’ll note that I encourage you to share to your Facebook page, not your Facebook profile.

I used to share it to both until I learned about Facebook’s EdgeRank. Facebook pushes very few page posts into other people’s streams. It favors posts that have lots of interaction such as people liking the posts, commenting on them and sharing them with their friends.

To help your Facebook page get more exposure, use HootSuite to post the blog link to the page. Then manually go into Facebook using your personal account and share the page’s post with your followers. That gives exposure to both your Facebook page and your blog post. Since I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen my Facebook page follower count rise more quickly than it had been.

Share your blog on your Facebook page. Then reshare it using your personal profile.

When I share the page’s update through my personal Facebook profile, I always paste in the same message that I used in HootSuite. Facebook often only shares the link on the page, not the comments about that link. You should consider doing this too. If you don’t add text, your friends won’t have a context for why you’re sharing the link.

Cut your HootSuite update text and paste it into the comment box when you share your page’s update.

You can read the full post here:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/blog-promotion-social-media/

Happy Blogging!
Sherry Lynn

If you are not integrating social media with your email marketing you are not getting the most out of your email marketing!

These are just a few tips to get people onto your social media sites.

The largest social media referrers to my site include Facebook and Twitter. I use HootSuite to post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all at the same time.