These social media strategies are listed in the order of time dedicated to each of them.
1 – Personal Blog
Role:
- Main hub for my online presence
- Create a professional online presence for my unique skill set
- Provide people with tips and useful resources to build cross-cultural and international skills
Reason: To make it easy to find me
TimeTime reviews
: between 1-3 hours every day
2 – International Strategy Blog
Role:
- Create a base for a membership site
- Provide businesses with an easy strategy for international business development
Reason: This complements my personal blog very well, but I cover more serious business topics here.
Time: between 30-60 minutes most days and more depending on membership site development
3 – Search
Role:
- Monitoring my name, blogs and business markets
- Business intelligence gathering
- Up-to-date monitoring of cross-cultural and international topics with a focus on both business and skill development
- Collecting useful resources for my personal blog
Reason: I do not know what I would do without this search. It is the first thing I do every day. It really is about business intelligence.
Tools: GoogleGoogle
alerts and other keyword search tools. This includes FriendFeedFriendFeed
as I use this to stay current. And I just started using BizSugar to monitor small business topics. Some of the folks there are obviously doing the same thing I do, but for small business topics. So it is a great place to look for current quality articles on subjects of interest for small businesses.
Time: 30-60 minutes every day
4 – Twitter
Role:
- Create strategic conversations on my core topics
- Under the radar marketing
- Build credibility
- Up-to-date monitoring of what is going on around cross-cultural and international topics with a focus on both business and skill development
- Collect useful resources for my personal blog
- NetworkNetwork reviews with key players in the field of cross-cultural and international business
- Identify key sources of referrals for my business
- Market feedback
- Connect with people I would never meet otherwise and who are important for my business networking.
Tools: TweetLater alerts emailed hourly & scheduled tweets.
Time: 30-60 minutes most days
5 – Social Networking
Role:
- Develop a strong international business network
- Identify good referral sources for my business
- Fundamental activity for developing my business.
Tools: Commenting on other blogs, engaging in conversations, the phone & SkypeSkype
Time: 15-60 minutes most days
6 – Social Bookmarking
Role:
- Collect useful resources for my personal blog
- Deepen actions in social networking
- Strengthen my online presence and visibility
- Find appropriate communities to establish social proof
Tools: I test different platforms regularly. And have just committed to strengthening several of my social bookmarking profiles as a personal investment.
My favorite social bookmarking platforms are: BizSugar, StumbleUponStumbleUpon, MixxMixx and DeliciousDelicious. I am also currently dabbling in Reddit, Sphinn and Tip’d.
Time: 15-30 minutes most days
7 – Community Participation
Role:
- Create a presence in specific communities linked to my business objectives
Tools: A few select groups on small business, social media, sales, web marketing
Time: 15 minutes most days
8 – Posterous
Role:
- The social networking platform of social media
- To share fun and interesting things that I find online that do not fit on my blogs
- To share guest posts I do elsewhere
- To connect with people in a social environment without the gimmicks and noise of FacebookFacebook
Tools: A sub-domain on my personal blog
Time: 15 minutes most days
9 – Facebook
Role:
- To be present in a favorite social hangout for some of my readers
- To share fun and interesting things that I find online that do not fit on my blogs or PosterousPosterous
Tools: A profile page, a group and two fan pages
Time: 15 minutes most days
10 – LinkedIn
Role:
- To be present in a favorite networking hangout for some of my readers
Tools: Nothing extra right now, but soon to use the SlideShare application on LinkedInLinkedIn
Time: 5 minutes most days
11 – Community Development
Role:
- Sounding board and idea development with like-minded people with strong international or cross-cultural profiles.
- To share fun and interesting things that I find online that do not fit on my blogs or Posterous
Tools: Ning group
Time: Heavy front end time investment underway
12 – Microsite Development
Role:
- To increase awareness of individual service offerings
Tools: WordpressWordPress
Time: Heavy front end time investment underway
Strategic Content
I cannot talk about all of these social media tactics without mentioning the need for a strong content strategy. It is this strategic content that makes everything work. Social media is based on content marketing:
- All of the content is there to drive traffic to my blogs which act as a central hub.
- Content is written to bring this traffic towards the central hub.
And content is used strategically:
- Content is adapted to the social media platform
- Content is re-purposed in alignment with the connection made on that social media platform
- All content is created within my overall business strategy
The Results
The important thing to remember is that all of these social media tactics work together. The synergy of everything combined is what brings clients to my business.
Although future clients find me through my social media presence, they rarely leave comments on any of the social media platforms. People usually contact me directly.
Social media for business is a process of getting to know our clients. Our businesses are different. Our clients tastes can change, and they can be very different on different social media platforms. People will continue to evolve in how they use social media.
These are the 12 social media tactics that work well for my business today. I usually spend a couple of hours a day on social media. But these tactics work well for me, because I can adapt the time spent to the time I have available.
You have to know that I did not start out with so many tactics. The first one was a blog, then a second one. And I spent many long months defining the different audiences for both of these blogs. Next came TwitterTwitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. And it was observing the synergy that happened with this little group that I slowly expanded onto other platforms.
How do I manage to do it all?
- Re-purposing my own content
- Actively sharing third party links
- Creating social network friendships
Although these tactics work well for me they may not work for your business in the same way they work for mine. And I would adjust my tactics for any other audience.As social media changes I may find myself using different tactics in the future.
What works for your business? Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
- What social media tactics do you use to connect with your clients?
- How many social media platforms do you use to market your business?
- Which social media platforms do your clients like to use?
Visit Cindy King Blogblog and know more about her talent!
Joao Moraes
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Parabéns amigão pelo site, e muito obrigado por ter colocado meu link e minha foto também, me sinto honrado em ser seu amigo e parceiro, espero um dia ter o mesmo sucesso que você tem, pena que eu nunca tive uma oportunidade de trabalhar com tecnologia, algo que eu ainda estou tentando, mais tudo é muito difícil no Brasil.
Congratulations amigão for the site, and thanks a lot for also having placed mine link and my photo, I feel myself honored in being its friend and partner, I wait one day to the same have success that you have, penalty who I never had a chance to work with technology, something that I still am trying, plus everything is very difficult in Brazil.