To Effectively Use Social Media, You Need to Be a Social Media User

 

I signed up for Facebook sometime in 2006, LinkedIn at about the same time. It wasn't until early 2008 that I became a committed user, and only began to tweet avidly the following year. Needless to say, I'm not one you would call a Social Media Early Adopter, but I don't consider myself much of a laggard, either. Yet today, I occasionally encounter someone who's not on Facebook, or only has a couple of connections on LinkedIn, and I wonder, "what are you thinking?!"

Now, that is not any sort of buyactivefollowersuk on people who just have no interest in social media. I can certainly understand people who aren't keen on letting their networks know their feet hurt, or that they're watching Lost, or whatever else. I know one who believes they would just become one of those "Facebook people," and another is intimidated by the reports of the thousands of Farmville or Mafia Wars posts that come up. A couple of these individuals, though, are in professions or businesses where the use of social media platforms could serve as a very useful tool for them to engage and interact with clients or customers, despite the potential requests for turnips or small arms deals.

If you perceive social media as purely social, as in friendly or fun interactions between people, then it's easy to overlook it's usefulness in business or other activities. But consider this...how many loyal customers to the local hardware store were cultivated though simple conversations at the checkout register? Doesn't the local coffee shop owner provide a valuable venue for customers to interact with each other, whether it's formal meetings or casual run-ins? How many professionals keep binders, Rolodexes, or boxes of business cards of current or prospective clients and vendors? The fact is social media is simply another resource for networking, building relationships or facilitating interactions, not to mention the promotional and information-dissemination.

. Even many of the most "people-person" people have trouble with online communication or grasping how to tweet, post or online network effectively. So, how can you become an effective user to benefit your organization or business? Strategically, of course!

1) Find your purpose for using it: What are you going to use social media for? Having conversations with friends/connections? Soliciting feedback from connections? Promoting events or products? Try to envision what kind of actions you want your connections to take-responding with their opinions, visiting your web site, attending your event-and then you can determine how to use the social media tools to elicit those responses.

2) Separate your personas: This is one of the biggest pitfalls of social media-users who combine their social, friendly personal interactions with their professional or business endeavors. LinkedIn users are more "business oriented" and may not be receptive to status posts about the football game outcome, whereas friends on Facebook may not be an appropriate or interested audience in professional interactions. Combining personal and professional content introduces noise

3) Plan out your usage: One client of ours is a professional services company. A page on Facebook not only provides another channel for promoting specials and coupons, but is also an ideal venue for offering tips for clients to get the most out of their services. Planning out content in advance, such as 6 months worth of weekly tips, can help create regularity to keep the audience engaged.

4) Plan for the unexpected: much of social media requires users to "roll with it"-a post soliciting feedback may get no responses, whereas a mundane update might go off on a crazy tangent. You don't have to spend all day online, but buyactivefollowersuk time to monitor and engage where appropriate, and as.38 Special said, "Hold On Loosely".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeBLu__JXJc

Even if you have more important spreadsheets, business plans, or live customers to deal with, social media can be integrated into your communications strategy, and you can cut overhead while increasing effective interactions with a little planning and understanding. But you have to log on to begin with, and having a solid plan can help, even if you're not a social media butterfly.