I spend my time reading articles on how to improve my social media skills, but often, feel extremely overwhelmed. It’s almost as if technology is whizzing past me and I’m on a bicycle, racing faster and faster, trying to keep up. Perhaps I need a new bicycle.
Like most people, I love to learn, but cannot help myself from dreaming of Belize, where I lived for a year, from 2004-2005, and wrote in my journal, “I’m bored!” What I meant was, I had so much free time on my hands, I remember finishing a 1,000 piece puzzle with my ten-year-old son, Jordan. The next time I sit down to a 1,000 piece puzzle, I shall probably be in a retirement home.
This is not a luxury that most of us writers, bloggers, and self-employed, have in today’s world, where things have turned towards branding and self-promotion. I recently ordered a great book, Celebritize Yourself: The Three Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business, by Marsha Friedman, an expert on PR and branding yourself. Marsha clearly points out that becoming a celebrity means, “You’re not really talking about yourself: you’re simply opening a dialogue about what you know, what you learned, what you have to offer and how you can help your listener.”
So first thing this morning, I started reading Eva Kaplan-Leiserson’s article on “10 Social Media Steps You Should Take (But I Don’t Have To)” and now realize which areas I need to focus on. Please read Eva’s article for a detailed explanation on how to accomplish these ten goals.
1. Launch your website. Include such sections as About Me and Contact Me, including a good description of what you do. (Mine is reserved Soniamarsh.com.)
2. Create a blog. (Done) As Eva points out, “Make sure you’re going to post regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day, but it should probably be at least every week, to keep people coming back.”
3. Set up a program like Google Reader for others’ blogs. (I use Google Reader to keep up to date with other blog posts. Do you?) Eva mentions, “There may be some people who still don’t tweet their blog posts.” I hope you do.
4. Start a Twitter account and create a background. (Do you all have Twitter accounts? Let’s connect.) Eva explains the importance of, “Titling your account with either your name or the name of something else you want to brand (your company name, your book name, etc.)”
5. Use a Twitter dashboard like TweetDeck. (I’m doing that today. What about you?) This allows you to “glance columns for people you follow, direct messages, tweets that mention you, even Facebook status updates.”
6. Create a Facebook Page. (Is yours for business purposes?) “If you have a company, create a page for it. It’s important that this be separate from your personal page.”
7. Join a Facebook Group. (I’ve joined several groups. Have you?) “Groups are great ways to keep in touch with certain segments of your friends or get support for certain niche interests or activities.”
8. Set up a Linkedin account. (I have one, do you?. If so let’s connect.) “While more and more people are using Facebook professionally for their companies, Linkedin is still the go-to place for individual professional accounts.”
9. Link to social media accounts on your website. You need big, visible buttons up on your website so that people can easily subscribe to them.
10. Explore other options but don’t get overwhelmed. (I am still figuring this out as I keep learning.) As Eva points out, “it’s better to use a few tools well than create 100 different social media accounts that will look like ghost towns because you never use them.”
Now it’s time for me to race my new bike again. But first the gym to warm-up. What about you?
