How To Use Social Media for Your Business
By Michael StelznerBy now you’ve been exposed to a barrage of social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to mention a few. Are you using them only for personal reasons OR are you leveraging these tools to grow your business?
I’d love to hear how these types of social media sites are impacting the success of your business??
Here’s how I use these sites:
Twitter: I use this site to blast out blog post updates to my loyal followers, share interesting things I find and gather feedback. I also use it to follow the people in the business that I think are luminaries. Funny enough, it is also a communication medium between myself and some of my very high profile friends who NEVER read email. If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here.
LinkedIn: I use LinkedIn to stay in touch with clients as they move to different companies. I also occasionally send questions to my linked peers for use in articles and such. The folks I am connected to here are a small group of very loyal clients. I am very selective about who I link with and will only link with people I know and have worked with.
Facebook: One of my favorites is this one. I use Facebook for personal and business connections. I find it very useful for communicating with my friends, family and business associates. Because I have personal details on Facebook, I do not accept strangers a s friends on fFacebook either (similar to my policy on LinkedIn). I use this service to stay in touch with people mostly.
Please tell me how you balance the personal and business nature of some of these sites.
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November 21st, 2008 at 10:12 am
Hi Mike, I’m an independent B2B technology marketing communications copywriter, went solo in ‘06. Here’s how I’ve used social media to grow my biz in 2008:
The vast majority of the time, I keep my personal and professional online ‘personalities’ separate. My username for almost all of my online biz profiles is B2BMarketingPR and I use another username and separate profile for personal accounts. People interested in B2B tech marketing/PR want info from me directly related to that, they don’t care what I’m doing over the weekend. My friends/family aren’t into marketing, but do care what I’m doing over the weekend. Right now I only use Facebook for personal use, if use it for biz will set up separate profile.
Blog
Started my biz blog in Oct., been great for SEO and driving traffic to my website, and sharing knowledge and resources with community. More importantly, one client found me through Google via a blog post, and fellow copywriter that read my blog referred a client to me because they were too busy at time.
LinkedIn
I have full profile including several endorsement quotes and links to my blog posts via WordPress application. Very picky re: who I connect with and send connection requests to. I send connect invites to B2B tech marketing/PR pros in my network (I did B2B tech MKT/PR in-house for many years before going solo so already had solid network) who could potentially use my services IF they accept consulting requests and I keep it light, not ‘hard sell’. Got 2 clients by doing this, and another client found me on their own when searching LinkedIn.
Joined several groups and monitor discussions via email updates in case anyone requesting copywriting help. Just yesterday I submitted links to a blog post of mine and an article I wrote to the ‘news’ section of the groups I’m in, already driving nice traffic to my blog and I’ve gotten 2 new email newsletter subscribers in less than 18 hours.
Occasionally answer questions posted to Answers section of LinkedIn, one of my answers resulted in me being quoted in an upcoming book on effectively working with clients. Didn’t know person was writing book when submitted answer, just good karma
Put link to my LI profile on my website to encourage people to connect with me. Also include link in my email signature.
Twitter
Started using in Sept., have 300+ followers so far. I make a conscious effort to only tweet about my blog posts, articles, etc. 30% of time, 70% is sharing other people’s information I find really useful and think my followers would too. I don’t want to be the annoying person who only talks about themselves, doesn’t build trust and credibility.
Very selective about who I follow in order to only get info relevant to me and make Twitter manageable. I DON’T follow a bunch of people just to get them to check out my site or follow me back to increase my numbers.
Several followers regularly ‘re-tweet’ my tweets which helps drive traffic to my blog posts and free article downloads.
A follower who is owner of marketing agency in my area got in touch with me via Twitter and hired me for project. I found a virtual assistant via Twitter who will be helping me with admin tasks I don’t have time for, helping me grow my biz.
Put Twitter button on my website which encourages people to follow me. Also include link in my email signature.
StumbleUpon
Drives a ton of traffic to my blog and website, better quality than one might think at first. I’m ‘friends’ with 30+ people also into biz marketing, PR, SEO, social media who I send my stuff to give a ‘thumbs up’ (and they send me theirs in kind) which gets it viewed by more people. Have had one blogger link to a blog post of mine when found it via SU, which drove nice traffic to my blog and a few new RSS subscribers.
Commenting on Blogs (like this one!)
I selectively comment on blogs I follow, making conscious effort to give useful information, not selling my services. Received nice site traffic from doing this (at least what can tell as most blog comments are ‘no follow’ links) and am not positive it was directly related but think I’ve gotten new newsletter and RSS subscribers from these efforts.
Squidoo
Made a lens re: B2B marketing, PR, social media, SEO on Squidoo which ranks highly on Google for some keywords. Link to my website on lens drives a bit of traffic, not much, but it’s highly targeted. No direct results yet but need to invest more time into lens as it’s not great.
Also using Technorati, delicious, but no results from those yet. Also did search engine optimized press release on research report I wrote which got picked up by several blogs and MarketingVOX and MarketingCharts did articles which resulted in a prospective client contacting me.
I set aside 30 mins - 1 hour a day to these efforts during work week, more on weekends.
Sorry this is so long, just wanted to share in case this helps other small biz owners.
Kim Cornwall Malseed’s last blog post..Social Media for B2B Marketing: Tips & Resources from 4 Technology Marketers
November 21st, 2008 at 10:52 am
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Wow — what a great comment, Kim. The detail - and results - are fabulous and inspiring. I went out on my own recently and have been building up with similar approaches in the last few months, but without as much discipline! Although I’ve just started to use Twitter myself recently and have already gotten a nice possible job from a revived old contact. And my blog is definitely helpful; I don’t at all buy the folks who are suggesting that blogging is “over.” It’s still a great way to share ideas, examples, and news, and will be valued as such to the extent it’s providing useful material and connections.
Rob Leavitt’s last blog post..Cisco’s big think approach to emerging markets
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I often find new solopreneurs have no idea how important social networking is nor do they understand how time-consuming it can be. And yet, in today’s work world, it isoften the most productive marketing available. Your article was well-timed and useful. And the lengthy comment was also excellent. I’m marking this as a reference for some of my clients.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
So far, I have gotten two writing jobs from Twitter and have hired one person through it, as well. So, that’s pretty good. Of course, we’ve found great people to work with through our blog, too. I have a LinkedIn profile but don’t really use it much. I reserve Facebook for non-work-related stuff. I have accounts other places, like Work It Mom and StumbleUpon, but it all got to be too much to keep up with, and now I pretty much just blog and Twitter.
lornadoone’s last blog post..WAHM Talk Radio
November 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Thanks for all the comments above. I use most social media platforms for almost the same use as most people do. What a time to have this out here,I’m in the middle of running a training on the importance of social media optimisation and its relationship with business. A lot of people simply use them but don’t really know the benefits.
Thanks Mon.
November 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I hope you have a good insight about social media sites. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
As much as I like myspace, be sure to avoid it because mostly high school kids use that website. I don’t know too many business people who are high school age so you can figure out pretty quick why this may not of be use to anyone. Twitter I like the most though because most major celebrities and companies, for whatever reason, use twitter more than the other networking sites.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Those are great social bookmarking websites. Im using those to build my online presence for the business.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Just posted an update to my blog related to this: “Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter … What’s the Diff?” http://www.maryebejer,com.
Most of it might be old-hat to you folks, but be sure to click through links to RazorFish’s Digital Moms report and Global Human Capital’s executive guides to social networking. Great info to share with clients/customers.
Mary’s last blog post..Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter…What’s the Diff?