Step By Step Social Media — Social Media Success Blueprint

Is Your Door Cracked or Wide Open?

by Shelly Lodes on January 29, 2010

Image: Danilo Rizzuti/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As a business owner I use social networks to build relationships. My main objective is to build stronger, deeper and more meaningful relationships. I want to connect with my audience in order to find more prospects, clients, customers and business partners.

I leverage Facebook to connect with people and spread my expertise beyond my local market. It’s pretty simple really….I post an update and someone may post a comment to my update. Any comment I receive confirms that I’m being heard.

Are you trying to leverage Facebook for business?

If you are, you want to be sure to acknowledge everyone who interacts with you. Your social networking success will depend on it. It’s crucial that you respond to comments if you want to find & grow strong relationships that have real substance and value to both of you. For this to happen you must open the door to every possible relationship relevant to your market.

When a friend or fan reaches out and leaves a comment, it opens that door a crack. When you respond it gives you an opportunity to open the door wider and engage your new friend or fan deeper into conversation. It also shows them that you care about what they have to say.

1. If a friend or fan compliments you, thank them.

A compliment is a great way to start a conversation. Thank them for the compliment and then turn around and ask a question about them! If you want other people to be interested in you, you must show interest in them.

2. If they ask a question, answer it.

Questions provide the perfect opportunity to demonstrate your expertise to an interested person. Sharing your knowledge will build credibility and give value to your Facebook community. The more value you provide the more likely they will come back for more.

3. If they have an opposing view, respect it.

If there is one thing I know, it is this…. not everyone thinks like you do. If we want to build relationships with existing and prospective customers and clients, it’s mandatory that you respect what they think and believe. I’m not saying that you need to agree with them. I have close, personal friends that I don’t agree with 100%, don’t you? I still try to respect their opinions and they respect mine as well. By simply stating,”I can appreciate your opinion, thank you for sharing that with me” lets them know that you heard and acknowledged them.

4. If they have a complaint or problem with your product or service, fix it immediately.

Never, ever, ever let negative comments or complaints about your product or service go unaddressed! That is business suicide. Either fix the problem or let them know that you are working on it and will get back with them. It is counter-productive to put yourself out there as the trusted expert and then not respond when they need you the most.

Using the social networks to expand your reach requires that you BE social! Don’t waste your time on Facebook if you only want a one-way conversation. Turn it into a 2-way conversation by giving your fans and friends a voice too!

Email this post

Share This Post:

{ 0 comments }

No time to spare and your weekly issue of your newsletter is due tomorrow! Here’s a solution….

by Shelly Lodes on January 6, 2010

It seems everyone is time crunched these days! Too much to do and not enough time to do it. That is one reason I love Twitter’s short, sweet and easy format. I have discovered a few time saving ways to reuse my tweets to reach different people in different spaces.

Re-purposing your tweets from your twitter stream is more than a time saver though. You also stand to gain a higher return on visibility by making this small investment… and is without a doubt, working smarter, not harder.

Here’s how…

At the end of the week, compile all of your tweets that contain information relevant to your newsletter readers into one email. There will be subscribers on your list who do not follow you on Twitter and this will give them a brief look at what you are up to and all the wonderful resources you are sharing on Twitter. This creates an excellent incentive to start following you on Twitter because they will not want to miss out on your valuable information.

If they are currently following you and have not put you on one of their specific twitter lists, it’s probably safe to say that they do not read every one of your tweets. Some tweets are sure to slip by on the fast moving twitter stream so this is a great way to catch them up…

Another upside to this is……

Those who chose to follow you are definitely going to be “targeted followers” because they are already subscribed to your list and clearly interested in you and your business.

You’ll extend your reach and visibility because these new “targeted followers” you’ve attracted have followers of their own who will potentially read your tweets!

Another tip: You should always include a “follow me on Twitter” button in your emails, ezines or newsletter. People are short on time so if you make it easy for them to follow you they will be more apt to act immediately.

Make this one small, initial investment today. Take the time to sit down right now and create a compilation of your tweets from last week and send ‘em out in your newsletter this week!

Who else wants to share some Twitter “re-purposing” ideas? I’d love to hear them! Let’s connect …leave a comment or catch up with me on Twitter!

Email this post

Share This Post:

{ 1 comment }

Facebook Tagging Done Right

by Shelly Lodes on December 2, 2009

If you mention a friend in one of your status updates, you might want to consider “tagging” them.

As solo and small business owners we need to expose ourselves often. To do this we use using various social media platforms. This is how we increase our visibility. Increased visibly helps our audience get to know us, connect with us and remember who we are and what we do.

Tagging is another way to get a little more oomph from our efforts and a creative way to interact with our friends.

How does tagging help your business?

Tagging in Facebook provides your businesses with a way to stay in the forefront of your friends and fans minds.

When you tag someone they will receive a notification that they have been “tagged” and more than likely will want to check out what you “tagged” them in.

Your tagged status update will show up on their wall as well. There is not an option to comment on their wall so if they want to comment they have to click on the link under the post where it says “View Post” This will link back to your original update where they can leave a comment on your profile or page!

So how do you “tag” someone?

Type in the @ symbol plus the first letter or so of the name, group or page that you want to tag in your status updates.

This will activate a pop up box that displays the names that start with the letters you typed.

When you select one of the names, the @ symbol disappears and the name shows up as a hyperlink in your update.

If you click on their name in your update, it will take you to their wall.

This works in the “Notes” section as well.

There are some limitations…

It does NOT work in comments.

You can’t tag someone if they are only a fan. They must be a friend on your profile page too.

DO NOT abuse tagging!

Only tag a friend if they are relevant to the post.

Don’t randomly tag a big influencer in your industry just for extra exposure to their friends. Not cool!

Be sure that you have a relationship with the person you tag. Don’t randomly tag a person who you have not communicated with or have some form of connection.

Tagging is great for…

Complimenting, congratulating or thanking a friend personally in a public way.

It is also a wonderful way to bring exposure to your friends fan pages.

So………..tag, you’re it! Go give it a try!

Email this post

Share This Post:

{ 1 comment }

Bonus Tip – Beware: Spammers Harvesting Email Addresses on Twitter

by Shelly Lodes on November 28, 2009

Most of us are aware of Spammers on Twitter. But did you know they could be harvesting your emails?

Type “email me at” or “contact me” or “gmail” into Twitter Search and see what turns up…

I ran the search and I was floored at the amount of people who actually put their email address in their tweets. Some even post their primary address. Once you tweet your email it becomes searchable forever.

Chris Crum’s post on WebProNews explains how easy it is for spammers to harvest email addresses from Twitter tweets by using a simple script. Chris advises that you shouldn’t throw your email address in your tweets unless you want it to be searchable.

Part of me did not want to mention this vulnerability because it gives unscrupulous spammers new ideas. I’m sure this is not new and probably has been going on for some time but I always hesitate to broadcast devious behavior for fear of spawning more copycat activity.

After performing the Twitter search myself and witnessing a lot of tweets containing email addresses I feel this issue is worth mentioning.

Sometimes what seems so obvious to some is not that way for others. If you don’t think like a spammer you might not have given this issue much thought until now.

Protect yourself by sending them to your website instead. They can ask you questions or send you information from your contact form on your website. If you are having a specific conversation and need to send your email address then I suggest you send them a direct message. Direct messages are not searchable.

Be aware that some people do not read their DM’s because they are littered with spam & false connections. If you are trying to get sensitive information to someone reply to your recipient using the required @username and tell them you sent a DM that contains the email address they need.

If you feel you absolutely want to leave an email in a tweet format it as: shelly at shellylodes dot com.

This isn’t a huge problem, but you should be aware….

Dedicated to your success,

Shelly Lodes

Email this post

Share This Post:

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Is Your Door Cracked or Wide Open?

No time to spare and your weekly issue of your newsletter is due tomorrow! Here’s a solution….

Bonus Tip – Beware: Spammers Harvesting Email Addresses on Twitter

Categories

Twitter Visitors

SUBSCRIBE