Should you focus on Twitter? Well what about Facebook? What in the world is micro blogging? AH!
How are leaders supposed to get involved in these new social phenomenons to build customer relationships and their business when it seems so complicated?
The key for leaders to crack social media is Strategy. You need to use strategic leadership to define what you want out of these social outlets and how you can connect with more potential customers.
Lets take Twitter as an example. The bottom line is you want to connect with prospective customers and create relationships. In order to do this you need to define HOW and WHO.
HOW are you going to connect with others through Twitter?
1. Go to TweetDeck.com and download TweetDeck for your computer. This will make building relationships much easier because it allows you to see what people are tweeting, whose talking about you, and your direct messages all at once.
2. Tweet content. Think about how you can help your followers and start tweeting. Maybe you found a great leadership article over the weekend. Tweet about it and add the URL. If you have a quick coaching or mentoring tip tweet it. Try to find ways that your followers can benefit from reading your tweets.
3. You can’t start selling yourself right away. Create relationships, retweet other posts that you like and respond to posts. Try to tweet about 80% content on your topic and 20% self promotion.
WHO are your followers going to be?
This is crucial because if your followers have no interest in what you have to say you will gain nothing out of social media. So define WHO you can help and WHO would be interested in what you do.
For example, if you do Leadership Development Training you want to simply appeal to people interested in leadership. Go to the top of your TweetDeck to an icon called TwitterSearch. Type in leadership to your search and it will create a column that will show you everything people tweet about the word leadership.
Now you get people who are tweeting about going to leadership conferences or reading a book about Corporate Leadership. CHA CHING! These are the people you want following you because they will care about what you have to say and you never know they might be looking for someone to provide Leadership Development Training.
You need a strategy to enter Social Media. Having the most twitter followers or Facebook friends will get you no where. Define HOW you will connect with others and WHO you want your followers to be. Social Media can be a great tool to connect with people all over the world who are interested in the same things you are. So take 5 minutes and define your strategy to connect with potential customers and build relationships. You’ll do fantastic once you define your strategy and get started!
Need a little more help with Twitter? TwitterBackgroundsGallery has great Twitter Resources and even 8 free ebooks on Twitter!
Guest post from Kim, Not Your Ordinary Intern
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