Forget What You Know: Social Media

First blog, hot topic, I'm on fire already!
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Social Media... We were just discussing in an intense training session overlooking Brighton Marina in 23degree heat that we couldn't work out what on earth Social Media actually meant, but I digress. I'm hoping after probably too many beers for a paid training session (Sorry Josie and Ro!) that my notes make sense, but I thought I'd share the love. Pick your sites carefully: If you're in the service business, Bebo probably isn't worth focussing on. Stick with what works. Your basic two are Facebook and Twitter. Who, what, where, when? Answer these questions about the content and timing of your uploading.
  • Who are you targetting? Your other answers will stem from this.
  • What are you going to promote?
  • What content? Videos, audios, blog posts, tutorials, articles, what?
  • Where?
  • Which site?
  • When?
  • What time will you do your posts? 3am is a bit daft.... unless you're selling electronic downloadable products to the United States, in which case, 10pm when everyone is geeking out at their computers might not be a bad idea!
80/20 Principle: This is new, i've adapted it! The 80, being free content, and the 20 being sales. Nobody wants to follow/friend an e-spammer. Use these sites to DISTRIBUTE VALUE. That's it, occasionally saying "Oh, thought you might like to check this out" and link them up to a sales page. You're after a sustainable marketing effort here, not a quick win. Use it, without it using you: Get something like http://www.socialoomph.com/ which allows you to schedule your tweets, status updates and blogs so you set it and forget it. Get involved! Get a DAILY action plan: Write a daily action plan. Facebook should NOT take more than 15 minutes to maintain. Neither should twitter. Bonus tip: Chatting on Facebook is not work, I don't care who you are, it's not. If you really think it's work, imagine you have to find a grand to pay the mortgage or you'll be homeless. Now do whatever you need to do in order to find that money. That should get you off Facebook pretty quickly!