Question

Topic: Social Media

How Are You Using Social Media?

Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/5/2010 at 12:34 PM ET 2500 Points
How are you using social media right now?

When it comes to building relationships and creating
an extended network of quality connections, many business owners have yet to grasp both the importance and the potential power of sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

If you're NOT using these sites to build a following and
to create social proof and authority status, are there specific reasons why, and if so, what are those reasons?

If you ARE using sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to further your network and your reputation, how are you using these sites—for instance, are you directing people to linked content such as a blog, a video, or some other actionable (and measurable) destination?

Your answers might surprise (and hopefully help) you and others.

I look forward to hearing about people's experiences and opinions. Thanks in advance for your input.


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  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/5/2010 at 4:21 PM Author
    Here's an example of my use of social media.

    Over the last 18 months I've used Facebook and Twitter
    to build a network of contacts and followers. Recently, I've started reaching out to more people through LinkedIn.

    Here are my results:

    In mid January, 2010, I had 65 friends on Facebook.

    By connecting with like-minded people and by including
    a personalized message with every friend request I've sent out, I've increased this number to just over 1,300 in under
    ten months. Had I been more aggressive in this, that number would now be closer to 4,000.

    On Twitter, I have just under 2,200 followers. I've used the same technique as with Facebook, but I've been less active
    on Twitter than I would have liked to have been.

    I've used both channels to drive traffic to my blog, and to a few other sites. I've seen some modest success but know there is more to do.

    The important thing here is to experiment and to see what works for you. I've changed a good many settings to block certain people (because of spam), and to keep access to my streams as focused as possible. This way, the streams serve the people I WANT to reach, and they serve me.

    I've recently started using Hootsuite to schedule messages
    by day and time and this has freed me to spend less time
    on each platform and more time producing things of value.

    Through LinkedIn I've made some solid business
    connections and raised awareness of my business abilities.

    I'm looking for suggestions on how we can ALL improve our social media presence.



  • Posted by mgoodman on 12/5/2010 at 6:14 PM Accepted
    I think the MarketingProfs Know-How Exchange is one of the best social media vehicles available for marketing professionals. It doesn't replace LinkedIn et al., but it is very specific to marketing and it has more depth than Facebook or Twitter.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/6/2010 at 9:06 AM Accepted
    I'm using Facebook & Twitter to increase the visibility of my TV series Business With Passion. With each, I direct followers to (picture) thumbnails of guests and (video) trailers of shows. Both pictures & videos have lots of content about the guest's business.
  • Posted on 12/8/2010 at 1:28 PM Accepted
    Gary ,

    I know this may sound off topic but my angle on utilizing Social media was always leaning towards how it helps SEO. This may be attributed to the lack of time required to engage users on a meaningful level. This may seem short sighted and I admit is not one of our strong competencies. We use Facebook networked blogs application where you can claim your blog and plug your feed and share it with a wider audience kinda like Technorati. As far as Twitter we try not to use url shorteners for a little more link juice and we've seen Google over the past months incorporate more tweets in their universal results when we do use shorteners we use goo.gl . The newer players with a social layer like Foursquare and Gowalla have helped with our limited user engagement and definitely helped with local optimization.

    There is one site which offers a social layer and a new spin incorporating a gaming layer which I'm looking at right now an d I have to say they look promising check these guys out at scvgr.com.

    Hubpages, Squidoo and the like has always been a staple of our approach together with the social bookmarking sites.

    I would love to hear if these applications appeal or repulse you . :)
  • Posted on 1/9/2011 at 10:30 PM Member
    Hey Juliet,

    I am about to consider the role of Social Media for my company.

    When I've talked with Marketing Professionals they say the role of Social Media needs to be carefully thought through. A facebook page shouldn't be just a repetitive copy of a Blog. As such I'm trying to think different ways of using it, maybe for competitions or for Customer Service Enquiries and engaging with us.

    I think you should look at Linked In more, it's said to be the "professional facebook" and will only get bigger.

    Best wishes,
    Eve,
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