Argh. The social media non-believers

I do heaps of presentations about social media. Mostly they are to groups who have paid to turn up to learn about social media so are open and want to absorb as much information as possible.

And then there are a few who the organiser has thought social media is a great topic, but the participants aren’t all on board the social media train.

A few years ago you’d expect to encounter social media non-believers. You know the ones. We’ve all come across them… you may even be one.

Non-believers say things like: “Facebook is just for Gen Ys”, “I don’t do twitter because why would anyone want to know what I ate for lunch?”, “Why would I put my details on LinkedIn – I get enough emails from people selling me stuff already”.

One time I remember I presented on social media to a group of CEOs of mid-size organisations. One minute into the discussion the non-believers in the room started the monologues about how pointless social media is.

A year or so ago I would have felt it was my place to take the time to deliver compelling arguments with them about the role of social media for business and leaders.

Now I think: If you don’t get it, that’s your problem. There is so much information and research that discusses social media and how it impacts business. There are a million case studies. In fact, I’ve written so many articles and blog posts about social media I’ve lost count.

If you are a leader and you think social media is a waste of time, you are doing your business a disservice. Your competitors are getting it. It’s no longer a question of should we do social media. It’s how well are we doing it.

Here are some tips for doing social media well and building great social media engagement:

Identify what you have to say

Selecting which specific issues or topics you are going to speak about is crucial. Many businesses make the mistake of casting the net too broadly and commenting on issues that are not interesting for their potential customers.

The goal should be to create a community around an area of interest. Identify the areas your business specialises in, share this content regularly and remain consistent and on message. By establishing your niche you are positioning your brand as leading and credible experts, and people are much more likely to consider your content as credible and valuable.

Start and join conversations

Social media is built upon the power of conversation. Social media channels are not designed for the one-way push of information; rather they present an opportunity to create a two-way dialogue with customers.

The way to do this is through asking questions, answering other users’ questions and responding to mentions and comments. Being an active participant in online conversations will not only help build your online profile, but will strengthen the relationships between you and your online community.

Understand your audience

Understanding who you want to speak to and where they are is critical. By breaking down your target audiences’ demographics, interests and behaviours you can better understand their online activity.

Understand who uses which social media platforms so you know where your potential customers are and where to invest your time. By engaging the right people via the right channels you can improve engagement with the people that matter; your potential customers.

Share great content

The content you share on social media needs to be timely, good quality and should drive people to share it with their online networks.

The most important thing to remember is your content needs to be interesting and valuable for your followers. Social media is not an appropriate arena for a hard sales message, rather your aim is to generate and contribute to conversation.

Not all content needs to be created by you from scratch. Repurpose old content, upload guest posts or articles or use content generated by your customers and clients. Hold regular brainstorms with team members to help generate content ideas.

Businesses not taking advantage of social media may be the dinosaurs of modern business, so maybe it’s time to take an open minded look at the potential role of social media for your business.

photo credit: Jason Howie

Social Media

Facebook personal pages – just how personal can you get as an expert?

I was a latecomer to Facebook. As soon as I found out about blogs (they were called weblogs back then!) I started one, and the same with Twitter.

But I just didn’t get Facebook for a long time. It didn’t appeal to me for some reason. So when I did get around to joining in Facebook I had the time to figure out what I wanted to use it for.

Most people use a personal Facebook page to post pictures of their holidays and keep up-to-date with friends and family.

I do that, but I also use it to connect with more personally with business contacts, journalists and clients.

Connections

For me, my personal Facebook profile is a collection of friends, family, clients, journalists, business associates. I choose who I connect with on Facebook; I don’t connect to everyone I know or meet.

My style of Facebook page provides an opportunity to share my interests outside of my business, so my professional contacts gain an insight into me as a person. I think it leads to stronger relationships and a great opportunity to build rapport.

Style of updates

Using Facebook in a professional way means that you can’t share those drunken photos or bikini shots from your holiday! It is less formal that Twitter or LinkedIn, however it you need to treat it as a professional platform.

Your updates should be a mixture of personal and professional information.

Your professional updates can be on about topics relating to your industry, business or job role. In order to increase your profile as an expertise, share information about what is going on in your industry. You could share links to news stories or blog posts relating to your industry and topics of interest.

Your personal updates can be as personal as you choose. Just because it is Facebook don’t feel as though you have to be overly friendly or share too much. Keep in mind that you want to manage your reputation.

Facebook is a great place to share images such as photos of you doing a presentation, at a work event or doing other work related activities.

Creating two Facebook profiles

If you don’t want to mix personal and professional you can create two Facebook pages. There is a growing trend of people creating two Facebook profiles, one as a professional page and another as a personal page, allowing them to keep their two identities separate.

For example; one page could be Sally Smith and the professional page could be Sally Smith CEO, to be able to differentiate between the two.

Of course, there is always the option to have just one profile as a professional one if you’re not interested in Facebook for personal use.

You can use the Sally Smith CEO for professional connections and only share professional updates. For Sally Smith, that’s where you connect with family and friends. In this is case you don’t need to be as careful about how personal your updates and photos are.

Facebook personal ‘like’ page

I have just started a ‘like’ or business page in my own name in conjunction with the launch of my book and online products From Unknown To Expert. (Jump over and like it!)

I’ve done this so I can share specific messages and content about the book and also connect with a whole bunch of people I might not connect with on my personal page.

There are several options to making Facebook work for you as an expert. The key is to do some thinking about it and apply the strategy.