Blog for a reason, or don’t waste your time! Social media without a blog or blogging without sharing it – either way, the whole system is inoperable.
We describe the relationship between your website and social media to your car’s drive train. Your website is the engine, but your blog is the transmission. You can’t drive the car with just one – you need both.
Lesson 6
Blog for a reason, or don’t waste your time! Social media without a blog or blogging without sharing it – either way, the whole system is inoperable.
We describe the relationship between your website and social media to your car’s drive train. Your website is the engine, but your blog is the transmission. You can’t drive the car with just one – you need both.
Your engine needs to run smoothly so your car, er, business, can do everything it needs to do. Your transmission is responsible for making progress down the road. If you can’t get out of first gear, it doesn’t matter how great your engine is, you won’t go very fast at all.
You’ve been learning how to write your blog so you can effectively communicate with your customers and prospects, but how about getting your name out where they can find it, and even beyond those people? Social media is where you start doing that.
Common Misunderstandings
You may already be convinced that your company needs to have a social media presence, but you may not understand what that means. To break that down, it may be more helpful to learn what a social media presence is NOT.
- It is NOT Twitter and Facebook icons on your website.
- It is NOT an unmanned business page or Twitter profile.
- It is NOT advertising your company online, though it IS gently promoting it.
- It is NOT shouting aimlessly, mindlessly, and hopelessly into a world that doesn’t respond to you …
Even though you may have experienced ALL of those things. Most people do at first.
The best way I can sum it up, is to help you understand that social media should be viewed as another avenue and level of:
- Customer service
- Networking
- Helpful product knowledge
- Connection between your company and your visitors
Your goal isn’t to gain followers, friends, or ‘likes’. Surprised? Most are. Those are not the factors that will increase your sales, bring in more cash, or target higher paying customers.
Your goal IS to build your ‘list’. We talked a little about email campaigns and free reports as ways to send interested people to your targeted lists. You can, and should, do that with social media, too.
When your attitude is service, not your follower list, you’ll start encouraging your customers and prospects to connect with you on social media from the first phone call or networking connection. These people are warmer contacts, and more likely to share the material you send out, more likely to purchase from you because you’ve shown authority in this area, and more likely to trust you to back up your sale.
At least one tweet or status message a day should request that people sign up for your e-newsletter, e-zine, ebook, or free report. This method increases the amount of contact data you collect, gives you an idea of the information they look for so you can create more of it, and gives you an opportunity to segment your subscriber list according to their preferences. When you send someone a promotion for something they’re already interested in, and they trust your company, you’re much more likely to close not only that deal, but bigger deals in the future. Isn’t that exciting?
Here are some other things to share using social media:
- Promotions
- Tips and advice
- Humorous quips
- Other interesting things you read online
So to avoid making your social media presence what it should NOT be, I want you to make sure those social media icons on your website are linked to your business Facebook page and Twitter URL. Then I want you to be sure they can easily be seen and used by others, not hidden under your home page or teeny-tiny in your banner.
Using your WordPress.org plugins topic on the left sidebar of your dashboard, go into your plugins and ‘Add New.’
We’re not going to go into the various social media hangouts to choose from. Instead, I’m going to concentrate on the handful of locations that are having the greatest effect right now. Not everything will apply to you. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest are helping businesses get noticed right now, so you should be paying attention.
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