S is for…….Strategy!

 

When people ask me why I love Twitter, I always say it’s because you should never underestimate its potential! 9 times out of 10 that’s usually met with ‘well I just don’t understand it and I don’t have that much time to make it worth my while’ Well that’s where I think they’re missing a trick, because they’ve got no strategy!

Now, I’m not talking Chess or Battleships strategy ;) I’m just talking about having a clear objective about what you want to achieve with Twitter, or any social media platform for that matter!  

When I first started on Twitter I have to admit I spent a LOT of time on it to start building relationships and just get to grips with it, but now I’ve pretty much got it down to about 1 hour in total across the day. By working smart and having auto tweets/posts going out through the day and using my Twitter lists to their full potential it really helps make the whole process a lot easier. I also find using Facebook & Twitter on my phone is a god send as it means if I have a spare 5 minutes in between meetings I can quickly pop on, see what’s happening , reply to people who may have mentioned me and do some re-tweets/posts.

Of course the real main reason any business starts using any social media is to generate leads, but it can be so much more than that! I’ve met some amazing people who I may never have met anywhere else and they’ve all given me ideas, motivation or support with moving my business forward. I think the key thing to remember with any social media platform is you get out what you put in, if you make it all about you, you’ll probably not see great result, but if you engage, interact and put a little bit of ‘you’ into it, you’re onto a winner!

So, here are some things to consider when thinking about your strategy:

1. Don’t become a slave to it – it shouldn’t take over your life! It doesn’t make sense to spend hours on it and not see any results. Keep a track of how much time you’re spending so you can see what the return is on the investment of your time; your most precious commodity!
2. Use apps like Hootsuite to schedule your ‘business card’ messages so you can spend the time you do have interacting and building relationships with people; it will make all the difference!
3. Use your lists on Twitter – they make it feel so much more manageable! When you’re following thousands of people they really help you filter out some of the ‘noise’
4. Don’t make everything about you! The hard sell approach doesn’t work on social media, the clues in the name ;)
5. Use hash tags – if your business is location based make sure you’re putting your location in! Nothing more frustrating than seeing a great tweet about a brilliant service/job opportunity or the like but no idea where! I suppose I’m lucky in that respect, my business is virtual but I still use applicable hash tags in my ‘business card’ messages to help spread the SAS message further ;)