Social media can be viewed as a series of puzzles.
When you first start in social media it seems that everyone knows what you don't. The mysteries of social media are revealed slowly as you browse and experiment and learn. This series of posts will explore some important pieces of the social media puzzle, of relevance whether you're new to social media or an old hand.
The 1st puzzle I'd like to explore is, what are your goals for social media? The reason this comes 1st, for me, is because how you answer this will affect every social media action that you take.
If your goal is simply to increase sales of your paintings or widgets or nuclear reactors then there will be a series of steps you need to take to build relationships with people who might be interested in what you are selling.
This will however be rather a restrictive use of social media. It would be like installing a telephone in your offices and only using it for sales calls.
Every aspect of your business can be impacted positively by social media, if you let it. Human Resources, purchasing, accounts, shareholder relationships, PR, marketing, sales, service and R&D can all use social media tools to connect with people, listen and communicate.
You can use social media as a creative tool too, to allow you to express whatever you want; your love of fly fishing or photography or ball room dancing. And you can use social media to build relationships widely.
So when you are thinking about goals for social media, think about the other sides of this puzzle piece, think about the hidden layers that social media can bring.
This is the 1st in a new series of posts. In the series I will explore various hidden and puzzling aspects of social media.
Your thoughts, comments and reactions will be gratefully received.
To support this site - over 100 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!
Interesting post, which I found on my Twitter stream just now (social media's many layers at work!). I use SM mainly to promote my writing. While that usually means getting people to read my blog, I've had a few posts picked up by newspapers and journals. A journalist, whose name I promptly forgot, said once that if you want to make it in journalism, you should do what you love well and wait for people to come to you, rather than plead with and bombard people who are busy enough to be ruthless. I think SM gives you the tools to create that space. That said, I'm still not at the stage where I'd like to be: making a bit of money from my writing.
ReplyDeleteYes simple and excellent focus. Social media can be so full of noise. Its really easy to get lost doing loads of cool stuff - but at the end of the day "what is the point?" literally. You do need to decide what your goals are: messaging, branding, links, increase sales etc. Whatever it is, just decide and focus on that goal.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that it takes time to build a presence and slowly understand how things actually work. Social media is more like people watching/physchology. Its all about "How" interactions happen - you have to observe and learn.
Thats how we do it and it appears to be working for us - slowly but surely.
Cheers
Damian Scattergood
STAR translation services.
http://www.star-ts.com