Exciting news! On the 16th of March, Alicia Cowan and I will be joining forces once more to bring more people over to the world of social media – and ensuring that it’s used properly for business. We have both had a lot of success using these tools in our respective businesses – we even met each other on Twitter!

We are not advocating that social media marketing is there to replace face to face relationships, but rather that it is there to allow people to get to know you and your business in a soft and gentle way. Each of the platforms – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Pinterest – have their own unique behaviours and uses – and though Alicia and I use them all it’s not mandatory.

The rewards of social media are undisputable in our eyes, and  this is because we apply a few simple behaviours but mostly we are just ourselves.

What’s really rewarding is that so many of our previous attendees have become super active on Social Media which is a great way to keep in touch with them.

Social media is another form of networking so it’s really a long term thing, which is great as it gives poeple time to practice, get to know people,an just let it become second nature.

5 must follow social media rules!

1. Make sure you fill all your profiles properly – with a picture of your face, a well written bio, and your branding where appropriate. Don’t be an egg!
2. Don’t be salesy! Use social media to share, inform and promote others. This will mean people see you as interesting, useful and generous
3. You don’t need to spend all day on it – you know what your priorities are. But it is important to be consistant with your activity.
4. Don’t underestimate the power of a blog – this is a place where you can really share your knowledge, advice, and case studies.
5. Build relationships online but bring business conversations to real life meetings or email wherever possible – the real deals happen there!

If you are an active user of social media, you probably know all of this and the value it brings. Feel free to send people to our event or come along yourself, it would be great to meet you (see point 5 above).

Tags: Alicia Cowan, facebook, Google Plus;, juggling social media, LinkedIn, social media marketing, Twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.