Here are five things you can do today to revamp your social media strategy:
1. Be a social media leader
The traditional view of social media (if we can call anything that's less than 10 years old "traditional"!) is that it's about conversations - with your customers, potential customers, influencers, and other important people in your network. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a low-level activity. Workers have conversations around the water cooler, in the lunch room, and at cafes. Leaders make presentations before they engage in conversations. When they do have conversations, they often do it as a coach, mentor or facilitator.
Do the same thing online. Tell first, and then you can choose how to participate (or not) in the ensuing conversations.
2. Share ideas, insights, expertise, knowledge, and thought leadership
Broadly, there are three ways you can share information with your followers:
Curate: Share what others have created - videos, photographs, links to blog posts, Web sites, and infographics - perhaps with a brief explanation of why it's relevant and important.
Create: Share your own expertise and knowledge, in various forms - such as video, blog posts, articles, audio recordings, slide shows, and webinars.
Collate: Scan the environment for seemingly unrelated topics, and show how they are connected in a way that's relevant to your followers.
Of course, everything you share must be relevant to your followers, and must be consistent with your brand and thought leadership.
3. Choose your leaders and followers
Leadership is not the same as friendship. If you're my friend, then (by definition) I'm your friend as well. But if you follow me, that doesn't mean I follow you as well. So stop trying to treat the social media landscape as an equal space. It's not a democracy; it's a meritocracy.
For example, on Twitter, follow the people you want to learn from, not just everybody who follows you. And when you do follow somebody, don't expect them to "follow you back". That simply doesn't make sense.
When you're seeking followers, start by inviting people on the platforms where you already have followers - for example, your newsletter list, blog subscribers, podcast subscribers, and so on. They are already following you in these platforms, so they are more likely to follow you on social media as well.
4. Don't spread yourself too thin
Invest your time in the networks that most value your expertise and knowledge.
Of course, you already know that Facebook is more of a social network than LinkedIn, which is more of a business network. So, broadly, if you're dealing with consumers, you might find Facebook a more profitable platform than LinkedIn.
But it goes deeper than that. If you've chosen LinkedIn as a target platform, choose the right sections in LinkedIn as well. Typically, these will be specific groups where your peers and clients are active.
Similarly, don't restrict yourself to the big platforms. If you find a small niche forum dedicated to your area of expertise, it can sometimes be far more effective to invest time there.
Of course, you already know that Facebook is more of a social network than LinkedIn, which is more of a business network. So, broadly, if you're dealing with consumers, you might find Facebook a more profitable platform than LinkedIn.
But it goes deeper than that. If you've chosen LinkedIn as a target platform, choose the right sections in LinkedIn as well. Typically, these will be specific groups where your peers and clients are active.
Similarly, don't restrict yourself to the big platforms. If you find a small niche forum dedicated to your area of expertise, it can sometimes be far more effective to invest time there.
5. Serve to sell
Finally, engage with the intent to serve your networks. Much of your communication will be one-way - through your blog posts, videos, webinars and other thought leadership - but never forget that you're sharing material for other people's benefits. So always ensure it's relevant and engaging.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7244552
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