10 Jun 2016

Social Media Specialist Part 2

Friends!

Friends. Are you someone that has the ability to make friends easily? Are you able to connect with people without a second thought and get to the heart of the matter, what’s really bothering them. If this sounds like you, then consider that becoming a Social Media Specialist may be right for you. Social media by its nature means that you’re going to be spending a lot of time on social media. You’re going to have to build relationships with people. That means that you become their friends and invest in their lives without ever really meeting them. Sometimes this is easier than other times.

Twitter bird logo 2012.svg

Consider that if you follow someone on Twitter, that you’re going to be able to follow everything that they post about. You’re going to get to know what their views are on a given topic and you’re going to be able to engage with them on those topics. As a result of getting to know them, you will be able to see who will be able to use your clients needs and who won’t. If they don’t meet your current client’s needs, consider that you don’t need to unfriend them. After all, you may change companies and you may also start your own company. They may need those services that are offered by the new company. That’s a win-win for both of you.

You need to become friends with those that friend you. I’ve recently had someone in social media befriend me to only have him cram his business down my throat as soon as I ‘befriended’ him back. People don’t want to feel used by you, so don’t use them. There’s a decided difference between sharing something that you do with a friend, and pushing your agenda on them without even getting to know them. It is not a good practice to get into, I strongly recommend that you don’t.

Also, consider that people know if you’re truly investing in them or if you’re trying to use them for their own gain. While it may take longer to invest in people, the ROI (return on investment) that you get from investing in them is far beyond the short term relationship. Always give your attention to investing in people for the long term and you’ll not only be deeply satisfied, but others will appreciate you as well. Remember, if people know that you truly care about them and not what they can do for you, they’ll go the extra mile to help you when you need that help.

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10 Jun 2016

Social Media Specialist Part 1

Social Media Specialist

Becoming a Social Media Specialist is not always as easy as you might think. It’s a combination of many different talents with the ability to execute any of those given talents at the blink of an eye.

Writing!

Consider if you will writing. Writing is something that few give much thought to when going through school. You do writing because the teacher gives you an assignment and then mandates that you turn it in. This requires the ability to communicate in written form. If you’re not able to handle grammar or spelling, then at the very least you will have lots of red marks on your paper. Depending on the instructor and the class, you may also suffer the consequences of those red marks by the lowering of your grade for that assignment.

The hard part about writing in school (or otherwise), is that you may not be gifted in coming up with the ideas for the given topic. If you’re lucky, your teacher may actually let you chose the topics that you want to do. With some people, that’s worse than an assigned topic because they’re not creative in coming up with their own ideas for that topic.

How does all of this play into being a Social Media Specialist? It’s simple, part of what a Social Media person does is to write blogs. The good and the bad news is along the same lines. If you work for a craftsman of some sort, all of your blogs will be focused around the type of craft that that person does. It also means that those that read your blogs will all be focused to those that are familiar with the topic. Consider that some of those will be experts and some will not. Each of these has it’s own challenges as well. When you write for a beginner in the field, you have to make things simple for them to understand. If on the other hand, you’re writing for an expert, you’re not going to be able to bluff them. You will actually need to know what you’re talking about and give that expert something new that they may not have thought of already.

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10 Jun 2016

What’s Appropriate?

There is so much out there on each of the social media sites, that often times the line between them can become blurred.  After all, some would say, aren’t they all the same?  The question to this is a resounding now!  Each of these platforms is designed and aimed at a different audience.  If I said something along the lines of, “let’s go to a bar for drinks!” versus, “let’s go to Mc Donald’s for drinks!”  you wouldn’t question that there’s a resounding difference between a bar and Mc Donald’s, the same is true for social media.

 

Logo of LinkedIn

Your Audience!

Your audience is always going to be the fundamental difference in all of the social media sites.  Linked In is a site that’s designed for B2B, but has recently had a major controversy stirred up by one of the business owners on it.  Candice Galek ran a campaign asking if a swimsuit with the girls rear-end hanging out was appropriate for LinkedIn.  Some said yes, some said no.  The end result was that it was the ad was pulled down and she reaped 36,000 new followers and that particular ad was viewed more than 50,000 times.

Regardless if you agree or disagree Candice got her name out there and her followers are high on most anyone’s account.  She got publicity by asking a simple question that was sheer genius.  What made it ‘ok’ for her to put such a picture up while others can’t?  The answer is simple, her company is BikiniLuxe.  Therefore, to advertise bikini’s by showing pictures of girls in bikini’s is consider ok.

Death And Religion

Does it make sense to post something about death and religion?  That again is a good question depending on where you are posting it and what is the business that you’re working in.  If your company is a funeral home, mortuary or some other business that deals with death, then it makes perfect since.

Facebook New Logo (2015).svg

The same is true for those that deal or work in the area of Religion.  If it’s your business then it’s ok to be posting on forums such as Linked In about  your business and the topics that concern it.  If however, it’s not your business, there are better forums than Linked In to be discussing such topics.  You can choose places like Twitter and Facebook to handle such details.  Those forums are designed for the personal user and the business that comes along with a personal account.

Twitter bird logo 2012.svg

Part of the advantage to and with Twitter is the fact that you can only make brief snippets in a conversation.  You are limited to 140 characters and everything you’re going to say has to be done in that amount of characters that are available.  The other advantage to using Facebook and Twitter type websites, is that if you don’t like what someone thinks or believes, you’re free to terminate the ‘friendship’ and no one will know the difference.  These type of channels are based on a ‘friendship’ format as opposed to business.

Sites!

Take a look at the sites that you’re considering and see what fits the needs that you have.  There are sites out there that will allow for you to post most anything and theirs no problem with that.  Other’s will request that you label the material that your posting for, such as ‘work friendly’ or not.   You are still able to use the site, you just have to put your product in the correct viewing area.  If you’re a photographer and looking for those platforms, they’re out there.

Take the time to research your needs and the platforms that fit them, then you and everyone else will be satisfied.

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10 Jun 2016
10 Jun 2016

In The Beginning!

In the beginning things were a lot simpler then they are now.  After all, there was only Facebook and you went on as did your classmates and complained about your teachers and that was that.  Then came the other giants: Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram (now owned by Facebook), to name just a few.  And if you’re a business, suddenly your little post on Facebook is no longer enough.  Suddenly you have to be a master of all the social media platforms or at least the major ones and be able to use them effectively and without hesitation.  If not, you will be left behind and ultimately people wont know about your product and how it can benefit them.

Sites And More Sites

Arguably one of the hardest things to determine is what sites will work for your product.  Consider first that you need to determine what your product is in order to determine what sites will work for it.  If it’s something that will have a lot of photographs, then there are sites like Flickr, Tumbler and Instagram, that are able to showcase pictures of your product for you.  Most of them like to have you ‘tell a story’ with your pictures.  One of the greatest examples of this use is found with bands and actors.  They take pictures of where they’re at, what they’re doing and over time you see the story develop.  Some cautions are now appropriate.  Some will not allow for you to post as a representative of a company,  it’s a violation of their terms and conditions.  Part of what you will need to is pay attention to what you ‘sign’ when you go on to one of the sites.  If you get blocked, you’ll lose all of the work that you’ve done and that’s a waste of your time.

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To Blog Or Not To Blog!

One of the challenges for many people that stare at the beast of social media is blogging.  They remember the terror of going to school and the teacher with that massive red pen marking their work up.  It’s understandably why you may feel this way, after all teachers can be tough.  But here’s a few things to consider when you’re looking at blogging.

  1. You don’t have to write a lot of information.  Just write what’s important to you about your product.  You’ll be surprised to find out how fast you can write 500 words (402 words to this point).
  2. You’re the expert, therefor, people are going to be coming to you and your site to have you teach them about what you know and love.  That takes a lot of the pressure off of your shoulders, because you’re going to be writing what you already know.  It’s not about some foreign topic that the teacher is making you write.  It’s now about what you love.
  3. Make your blog very niche.  That means that you can pick the smallest of topics and build them out.  The easy ones are often the most hidden ones.  Why?  Because it’s things that others wont have thought about and if by some chance they have, they’ll need you’re input on the topic because it is so niche.
  4. Don’t be afraid!  This is about your product, not the grade that you’re going to be receiving.  It’s information that you are simply transfer to someone else in written form.

 

 

Research

No doubt you’re now certain that you’re back in school and are remember that  you used to spend hours in the library looking up boring topics to write even more boring papers.  But that’s not what this research is all about.  This is about going and finding experts in your field to make you a bigger success than you already are.  Consider the following things about this type of research:

  1. You don’t have to go to the library for hours on end.  While you may chose to buy books, you don’t have to stay in the library and you don’t have to write a report.   You can put what you learn to work right away and see if it’s working for you.  If not, you get to dump it!  No harm, no foul, no bad grade.
  2. You can learn by going to conferences and traveling.  That makes them a tax deduction and it makes your business bigger and better.
  3. Your competition!  Yes, it’s important to follow what your competition does, especially if they are making more money than you are.  Your competition is doing something right and you need to learn from them, what that something is.
  4. Follow the trail!  You’ll find that once you start learning about social media that there is always a new trail to go down.  You’ll also find out that things will be fluid and things will change.
  5. Find a mentor.  There are people out their that everything they say about social media works for your company.  Follow them absorb from them everything that they have to say.  Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions because the more you ask, the more you will know and the more you can use.  And that’s what will advance your business.

 

Mistakes!

I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re going to make mistakes and plenty of them.  And that’s ok if you use them to learn from.  If you  make those mistakes your rocks to stand on, one on top of another!  Then they weren’t mistakes, they were learning opportunity’s and that’s what makes your business better and stronger.

Should you throw your hands up in the air and just decide that you can’t do it, remember there are experts out their like GladLABS.com that will be more than willing to help you with your social media and take you to the next level.

 

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