In my previous post, I asked Are You Using Social Media For Promotion? This time around, I’m asking how people use it, and I’m going to tell how I’ve been using some of it.
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First, let’s start with Twitter. Since I signed up with Twitter, the number of visitors has gone up. I know it’s because every post I write on all my blogs shows up on Twitter.
But that’s not nearly enough. What I do with Twitter is participate in the full process. That means I talk to other people. I retweet what other people post or say that I feel is pretty good. I post news articles I like that I want to share with people, even if it’s political. I post people’s blog posts that I like to Twitter, though most people don’t know it. Every once in awhile, I promote something I do, like writing or executive coaching. Also, every once in awhile I post that I’m holding “office hours,” although to date no one has taken me up on a visit during that time.
I figure when there’s really nothing to say, it’s time to share something that’s caught my interest at the time; it’s amazing who will respond to certain things at certain times. I even got to participate in what’s known as a TweetUp, which means I met people in person, twice I might add, through Twitter. And I ask people to follow me on Twitter, which of course helps me reach even more people, though I’m not making a large grab at followers. All organic; that works best for me. Now, if you’d like to follow me, you can click on the link above, or click on the bird to the right.
Through Twitter, I’ve gotten many interviews, one of which ended up in the newspaper, and some I’ve shared here and on my business blog. I’ve met some very interesting people, including Guy Kawasaki, who, because of our association, listed my business blog on his Alltop site under “leadership”; that was pretty cool. And I’ve learned some things as well; there really are a lot of smart people on Twitter, once you work your way through the noise.
Next, LinkedIn. Years ago, I couldn’t quite figure out how to use it. Back then, they didn’t have groups like they do now. Eventually they did start something, but it’s really only taken off in the last year. I’ve fully gotten myself into the LinkedIn experience also. My profile is totally complete, including an image. I belong to 10 groups at this juncture. I have 159 direct connections, which supposedly means I’m within range of tens of thousands of other people through a direct connection with some of these folks; freaky. I’ve had 21 people recommend me for something, which is pretty neat, as I’ve also recommended some people. The groups thing has really been interesting because it allows me to engage in business conversations with people around the world. I’ve even had the opportunity to meet two or three people in person through LinkedIn; wild! If you click on that link above, you should be taken to my LinkedIn profile page.
Next, Ryze. At one time Ryze was the premiere place to be, but it lost its way when the powers that be stopped updating things and listening to its members. I had a lot of business connections there through the years, some of whom I’m still in contact with, but they just fell off the wagon. Every once in awhile I still avail myself of their advertising area, just to get a backlink to something, but it’s rare. Of course, the best thing about Ryze is that it lets you set up your own homepage in any manner you’d like to, and that’s really the coolest thing of any of the social media sites I belong to. If you click on the link above, it might let you go to my page without joining, but I can’t guarantee that.
Facebook is an interesting animal. I’ve tried to mainly do business things there, but man, it’s just hard to do. I don’t participate in a lot of the goofy stuff, but I do play two versions of Scrabble there. And I talk to people, mainly individually through the feeds that pop up in your news feed area. I’ve met some great people there, and I’ve been reintroduced to old friends, and I mean people from college and high school; that’s always pretty neat as well. I set up two groups, neither one of them actually business groups, but neither does all that well. I’ve given thought to creating a fan page, but I hate joining them myself, so I feel like that would be hypocritical of me to do it. But I know I’m missing out on a great marketing tool, so I have to think about it some more. Once again, I think if you click on the link it’ll take you to my Facebook profile page.
Quick hitters on the rest, since this is getting fairly long. Obviously I blog, and I talked briefly about that in the last one. I use instant messaging, though not as often as I used to. I’m signed up with 8 forums, but I visit one way more than the others. But on each forum, I have a signature line of some sort, driving people to either a couple of blogs or a couple of websites. It’s about backlinks and SEO, but forums are also about participating and talking to people. All of it is a process for publicity, which I talked about recently also.
I think that’s enough. You’ve seen what I do; now, how are you using social media for promotion?
Whoo hoo! I’m the first comment! LOL Well this may be a long comment, but here goes. I blog, tweet, and facebook. I use linkedin. I still have a ryze account, though I very rarely use it. I’ve got a fan page and I have a blog talk radio show (0n hiatus right now). I’ve also gotten an upcoming blog talk radio interview via twitter and I had a journalist contact me via twitter. I’m still trying to figure out how to make Facebook work for business, but so far my social media experience has been quite beneficial for me.
.-= DeAnna Troupe´s last blog ..The Power of Partnering-Guest Blog Post By Liz Lynch =-.
Great stuff, DeAnna. The way you make Facebook work for you is the fan page, and maybe another group for some of the other things you do, or want to share with others. But you’re certainly working all that other stuff; great for you!
Good morning, Mitch.
I’m active on a lot of social networking sites and I use MyBlogLog.com and FriendFeed to tie them together.
I’m on Twitter quite a bit, but not nearly as much as you. Right now, it’s running in Twitterrific, but there’s not much I’m interested at 4:30 am on a Saturday in the stream.
I use it to tweet new blog posts, talk to friends (like you), post events in Murphy (using the #MurphyNC hashtag), and now and then retweet something. I should probably do more retweeting, but I don’t.
I use Facebook mostly for social reasons, rather than business. Quite a few of my family and friends are there and it’s a good way to keep in touch. I use it a little for business, but not primarily.
I haven’t gone to Ryze in months, but yesterday got a message that someone had sent me a private message there. Coincidence?
I’m active on a few Ning communities, but because of time restraints spend most of my time on the two I manage.
At one time, I thought Apsense was going to be a good site, but it got bogged down by too many clueless promoters and spammers, and I haven’t been back there in a long time.
I still visit a few forums, but not as much as I used to.
Blogging takes up some of my time, but I’m spending even more working on planning and implementing some of my static sites.
I like a mix of a static site, blog, and social network for a good mix of synergy and interaction.
Act on your dream!
JD
Thanks for sharing your list, John. I’ve never used Mybloglog, and it just seems, well, I’m not quite sure what it seems.
I didn’t mention Ning because I just can’t seem to get any real feeling for it. I’ve never seen any real action from any of the groups I’m in, which either means I’m in the wrong groups or people just aren’t that interested in its model.
That Ryze thing is karma; at least you know it wasn’t me! lol
That seems to work well for you, Dennis, the blogging. I think you’ll be dangerous when you do start getting into the rest of the stuff.
Mitch,
I’m using social media for promotion in a few different ways.
I’m active on LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook where I use blog posts and comments to connect with friends who follow my main blog, forum and network–not everybody follows me on all three and some people choose to do no more than follow me on the specific social site that they frequent, but between the three networks, I’ve built a nice following. I’ve also created fan pages for my forum and network with RSS feeds from each for those who want to join me there. I added my blog to the Networked Blogs application and that’s added to my readership.
I’m also very active on Ning and use RSS to post blog updates to my profile pages. I’ve created my own network on Ning and have grown it to 100 members so far. My forum is becoming more and more active with 721 members so far. I’ve found that using social media applications to create my own communities has the biggest payoff.
I’m not too frequent a Twitterer although I maintain a personal account and an account for my network with automatic posts of network and forum activity in addition to my own insights. I’m not one who wants lots of followers for the sake of it and I try to connect and interact with folks who share my interests.
I maintain a presence on lots of other sites and use Ping.fm to keep them fairly up to date but the sites I’ve discussed are where I spend the majority of my time in addition to trying to spend time building community on the network and forum that I’ve created.
.-= Iceman Baldy´s last blog .. =-.
Wow Iceman, that’s a bunch of social networking! You’re on LinkedIn? Are you under “Iceman”, or another name?
I just haven’t been able to get into Ning. For the networks I’m in, it seems like no one can get a conversation going. I’ve tried, but nothing. And I’m not in it just to post links, if you know what I mean. But you and I are connected on Facebook and Twitter; just can’t do MySpace. lol