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.

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.