Sunday, February 5, 2012

Making Social Media Work For You




This week I am setting out on a stream of consciousness writing related to social media. All this means is that I am going to toss stuff out there, and make no attempt whatsoever to link it together! It’s all good!

Social media for the most part isn’t something that we look at as being expensive – in terms of finances, anyway. We can all use the social media sites, and recommend them to our friends, without anyone going broke. However, there is a cost or two that I am seeing more and more people addressing, and that is the time that we have to spend consistently putting up well written, relevant content, in an SEO savvy manner. That, IMHO, carries a very high price!

What are some of the best ways to spend our time? A priority for me is following people that interest me, that have something to say, both in my professional worlds, and in special interest areas. I skim posts on Twitter, Face Book, and Google +, taking the time to read only those that I have both the time and the interest to read and respond to. I have an active RSS feed that I add blogs that I am interested in to, so that I catch new posts as they are coming out.

Thanks to my friend Anna Burroughs Cook, I can now work with Google Images, and quickly find decent images to use with my posts, and in my webinars. When I was moving from site to site looking for appropriate images, I just about tore my hair out! Now it’s one and done!

I am also paying a bit more attention to my Linked In page – updating as needed and adding connections as necessary. I can connect in a relevant manner with all of the worlds that I venture into on Linked In, as credibility (to me, anyway) is relatively easy to determine on this site.

I have a tendency to share links as I run across them, and I share them on Twitter, Face Book, and Google +. Yes, this does take up some keystroke time! I just ran across this site, and have not worked with it yet, so please do not consider this a recommendation. It is a simple “Check this out.” Bufferapp.com is a site that lets you collect and send relevant material from the Internet at preset times. http://bufferapp.com/ The one issue that I have here is that it appears to only post to Twitter and Face Book, and not to Google +.

Last, but not least – e-mail newsletters. I have friends who do this, and do this well. I have done this on and off over the years, and am currently of the mind that, at least for me, I don’t need both a blog and a newsletter. However, I do feel that a well written newsletter, sent out on a consistent basis, keeps the sender’s name out there, along with quality content.

Whatever you choose to do – make the social media work for you!

© February 2012 Bonnie Cehovet

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