Busy social media marketers are often perplexed with what works and what doesn't in the social media landscape. The tips, pros, cons, of social media are numerous and confusing at best. Here we have tried to summarize the strategies for business owners who want to use social media but don't have a lot of time to learn by trial and error.
Social Media Tips
LinkedIn endorsements are an interesting new feature that recently came out that makes it easy for people to give others a virtual "thumbs up" and LinkedIn asks whether you want to endorse a person's skills. To endorse someone, you visit that person's LinkedIn profile and simply click "endorse" at the top of the page. If you scroll down further, you can see the details of a person's profile. This is similar to "liking" a Facebook post. When you endorse a person's LinkedIn profile, you can re-connect with them. It is similar to networking events and face time. After you have endorsed someone, it is likely they will endorse you in return. When someone has endorsed your skills, you will have the avatar photos of people that have endorsed you on each of your particular skill sets. LinkedIn endorsements are a great tool for networking and re-connecting with connections that you have had little or no contact with in the past.
The World of Publishing and It's Evolution
In the mid 80's the process of publishing books has changed tremendously. The difference is day and night. In the past an author would send out a lot of proposals and hope that companies would be interested in publishing your book. Many rejections would return. And if you were lucky, then negotiations would ensue, your editor would request changes and as an author, you would do your best to please your publisher. The author lacked control.
Self-publishing has completely changed the era of publishing. From the time you finish your publication, send it to a copy editor, a few days later it can be for sale on Kindle. The whole process can be as little as a week from the time that you are finished with the book. It is unusual for a author that publishes a book in electronic form to also publish it to paper. The concept of the author retaining the e-book rights while a separate, traditional publisher takes it to paper print is unusual.
Publishing is an industry in transition. E-books are growing in popularity and traditional paper printed books are more expensive. At the end of the day, it is an iTunes world and authors are moving toward publishing their books in digital format.
It is a great opportunity for authors, especially those that write fiction. You write in Word, upload to Kindle, get a cover and your done. Publishing can build incredible momentum for your product or service and build a large following toward your social media networks which in-turn can funnel potential customers to your website or blog.
What is a publisher?
Desktop publishing means that anyone with PageMaker and a laser printer is now a publisher. People with blogs and websites are publishers. Now, with tablets and Kindles, publishing has evolved even further such that with Word and an upload, you are now a publisher.
Blogging and the Evolution of Blogging
Many people began blogs because they had a back load of material to publish. It kept them busy for a few years, but when they ran out of content to write about, bloggers have evolved. Many bloggers are turning to guest writers because the constraint is running out of things to blog about and the time to do it. Now with Twitter, Facebook and Google+, people have the opportunity to be a curator. It's one thing to generate content and another to find content. Being a curator on social networks consists of a two or three sentence of content on a social media platform the points people to something you find that is useful and interesting. This is useful for people that have a large platform on the Internet. Do you need to build your platform and if so, then beginning with a blog is a good place to start. It is much easier to drive traffic to a Google+ post, rather than blogging, so by incorporating the two into your strategy is a good traffic building plan. Blogging is very good practice for writing a book, but most organizations and individuals blog for traffic and by incorporating social media into that strategy, you can really build momentum to your following.
Where does Twitter fit into the Social Media Ecosystem?
People write stories, then the title of those stories are incorporated into a Twitter post or a headline which then funnels visitors to your website or blog. By repeating this 4 to 8 hours apart, it becomes a broadcast mechanism to drive traffic to your website or blog. Publishers should hand-craft the tweets and push them onto the social media landscape using tweets on Twitter. Be personal and interactive in your tweets. If you curate good content, people will also follow you in Twitter similar to the way that publishers are followed because of their original content that they have published.
Google+ and Google Local
Google+ is not just another social media network to manage. Google owns search and has integrated Google+ into their search. Google Local is also integrated into Google search. There is no way a company can ignore the growth of Google+ and Google Local. Google+ is not a Facebook replacement. But it is for those that do not have much in common with their high school classmates, you can connect with people that share your common interests. Google+ versus Facebook is synonymous with going to a party where you meet with your high school or college classmates. You know everybody. That is Facebook. Then, you go to another party and you don't know anyone there but they all have similar interests than you do. That is Google+ and can help business owners build a community of followers with similar interests.
Google+ is an outlet to curate. It is a great resource for an author or blogger. You can, for example, post pictures and request feedback. Many people do not have a lot of people in their circles, but it is a tool and a means to the end. It is a weapon of mass construction.
How to use Google+ on a Daily Basis to your Benefit
Keep a tablet nearby or some type of mechanism of which you can bookmark your favorite sites. Then customize your posts dependent on your favorite RSS feeds. Find interesting stories. Create a circle with only yourself in it. Share the story just to yourself. Then later, go back to Google+, find a picture that illustrates the story with a screenshot. Use "Do Share", a chrome extension which allows you to pick a time and day in which the post will be published. Keep in mind, however, that with Do Share, your computer has to be left on in order to post the post. You can create a Google+ post and schedule it for later. Do Share will automatically send it when you specify. You can save a draft now and edit it into a post later.
Where is Social Media headed and what are the trends?
Trends are hard to predict. Instead, most people react fast rather than predict. Podcasting is becoming more popular. Twitter is becoming more and more influential for businesses and prospective clients. Business owners benefit by Twitter by searching for their name, their competitors and the topics that they are interested in and use those tweets to build an information base, which can in-turn help you to build marketing strategies and business tactics. On Google+, post to the public (rather than just the people in your circles) and your following will grow incrementally.
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