Can you be too thankful?

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

Like everyone, I was always taught to remember my p’s and q’s as a child and I when I started out using social media, I decided to make it part of my strategy to thank people for supporting me. So, where am going with this post you ask?! Well the other day I saw a conversation over on Facebook about people ‘over’ thanking and it losing its meaning, so it got me thinking can you ever be TOO thankful?

The main point of the conversation was that some people didn’t want to be thanked for re-tweeting /re-posting/sharing content as that was just what it was there for. Now, I can kind of take that on board; we’ve all seen those epic tweets that start as one person thanking someone and then it becomes war and peace ‘thank you, no thank you, no no thank you’ and it goes on, but at the end of the day is that such a bad thing? It is social media after all!

I’m a big fan of thanking people and very often do my shout out for my re-tweet superstars! I think not only is it a nice thing to do for the people that think my content is interesting enough to share with their followers, but it’s also a great way for people to find other supportive people to follow. 

So, for me the answer will always be no, you can’t ever be too thankful; I really do appreciate the amazing support I have encountered and continue to encounter on a daily basis! Without that support my business wouldn’t be growing and I wouldn’t be continuing to connect with so many incredible people and businesses.

So thank you for taking the time to read this – I hope you’re having a great day! :)

Social Media – a marathon not a sprint!

I love social media, that’s no secret but I really do believe in the ‘social’ aspect of it so I’m always amazed when people feel the need to buy ‘fans’!

I see it so much across Facebook and Twitter where you connect with someone just starting out and the next time you look, their numbers have grown dramatically, almost overnight!

Now of course growing your network is the name of the game, but it’s still networking just as would you in ‘real life’! You wouldn’t pay people to attend your network meeting so why buy ‘fans’ that will never interact with you or never pass on your ‘business card’ (via a share or a re-tweet)?

When I started using Twitter nearly 2 years ago, my goal wasn’t to reach x amount of followers but to interact and connect with as many people as possible and by taking the ‘marathon’ approach I’m now very close to 5K with 95% of my work coming from it! Plus the other important thing is that a high percentage of those people that I’ve connected with are using Twitter for exactly the same reason I am.

I think everyone can relate to that feeling when you first start out and you don’t know what to say or just the enormity of it all, but buying ‘fans’ really isn’t the answer! If you invest the time at the beginning setting the style of your accounts the rest will easily follow.

So if you want to make social media work for your business, grab your running shoes and don’t miss out on the amazing opportunities out there – just be prepared to go the distance there’s no quick fix and don’t get tempted to sprint ;) 

(Picture from http://bit.ly/X8UcVJ)

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 ;)

All Talk and NO Trousers!

 

All talk and no trousers “Someone who is all talk and no trousers, talks about doing big, important things, but doesn't take any action” ¹

If you’ve read any of my recent blogs it’s not going to take a rocket scientist to know what this post is going to be about!

I’m constantly amazed (still!) by the amount of people that just think Twitter is a one way street and show no interest is anyone but themselves.

The accounts I mean are those that have got a Twitter account because they’ve been told that they must have one! So, they set one up link it to their website, Facebook account, Pintrest, you name it, and just let that feed the information. They don’t really get WHY they’re doing it, they just think they should, which is completely the wrong approach.

If you’ve got Social Media links on your website to show your customers you're social media ‘savvy’ don’t disappoint them by just being all talk – they’ll be turned off straight away! Show them your most important USP - YOU!

Don’t just do Social Media because you think you should be doing it, do it because it can make a HUGE difference your business and you can bet your competitors will be!

1. Ref UsingEnglish

Social Media - a numbers game?!

Yes, I am back! After feeling totally inspired after watching ‘Be Your Own Boss’ with Richard Reed CEO of Innocent on Wednesday night, I felt the need to write!

It was fantastic to see so many people looking to set up on their own business, and seeing the amazing creativity out there, especially amongst young people! Although, there were some, how shall we put it, unique ideas ;-)

The thing that hit me most when the final 3 made it through to meet with Richard Reed and pitch for the seed funding was the lack of understanding of social media. One of the teams said they had over a 1000 likes on Facebook so expected to see massive sales once their website went live. Richard very quickly put them right that ‘Likes’ do not equate to sales!

My ’concerns’ with Facebook over other social media platforms such as my beloved Twitter, are well documented. However, over the past few months I am beginning to see some benefits – shock horror! I still whole heartedly believe though that it is very much dependent on your type of business if it will work for you.

I was recently asked by a friend to like a Facebook page, so I duly popped over to see what it was all about and I was disappointed to see that they hadn’t posted in over a month and were just ‘chasing numbers’ thinking that the more likes they had would increase traffic to their site. Now of course all likes are good, but asking someone just to a like page when you aren’t posting interacting with people just defeats the point!

Sadly, Social Media is not the quick fix solution to building a new business it takes effort and a LOT of time! It’s an immensely powerful tool but you have to be committed.

It goes back to my little old analogy about social media and how it relates to ‘real life’ networking as I believe they should be treated exactly the same!

• see your auto tweets/posts as handing out your business cards to people telling them what you do

• your interactions are your conversations amongst the people in the group and connecting possible contacts (re-tweets/re-posts)

• And your DM’s/ Personal Messages are for the next stage when you start talking about possible business together, where you wouldn’t want the whole world listening!

I believe Social Media is not a numbers game! When starting out it is far better to have 100 quality followers/likes that re-post/re-tweet your content rather than go out all guns blazing after thousands. Growing your accounts organically is the key to success!

Facebook - Friend or Foe?

Firstly, just want to say a huge thank you to everyone for the really positive feedback about my first blog post 'Twitter - whats the fuss all about?' really appreciate all the lovely comments I received on here & through Twitter!

So following on from that, I thought for this post I would look at why I have fallen out of love with Facebook and why I don't really use it for 'networking' for my business! Said whilst listening for a sharp intake of breath from all the Social Media experts out there though ;)

Ok, my main problem is its functionality and the whole thing of pages, profiles, groups, events and all those other little icons down the side that the general user probably doesn't have a clue what to do with.

The whole issue of 'liking' pages is too long winded. Unless you know what you are looking for or have a link, I find it really difficult to search anything and if I want to check out my friends 'likes' it looks like this:

Hardly easy reading is it? Especially that last bit on the end 'and xxx more' who is really or has the time to go through that? I know I don't! Why they ever got rid of the panel down the left hand side of peoples profile's with their likes (and the company logos) I will never know.

I think that is another really important point, as a business you need brand awareness & that list hardly promotes you does it?! You are just in a list with everyone else!

Then my other major gripe is, that if you want to like a page to your own page, you have to go right to the bottom left hand side and then smuggled in there somewhere is 'add to my pages favourites' why not have a' like to my page' button next to the normal like button?!

Then there is the whole issue of sharing posts - I know from looking how my friends use Facebook they very rarely post about products or services, its normally funny You Tubes clips or music videos. When I set my page up for my business only 2 of my friends went on 'share' my posts to their walls. Now, I seriously don't think its because my friends don't like me (I hope, lol!) but I genuinely think it is because either people don't know how to or its just too long winded! Especially when confronted with this & all the options of where & who to share with!

So, from my business point of view, I just don't think it works. I could post as many lovely things as I want & have a brilliant page, but what is the point if no one sees it or shares it with others?

I am sure there will be Social Media experts who can tell me all the tricks I am missing with Facebook (and I would love to hear them, lol!) but from a users perspective it is not the easiest format to navigate & explore.

I think what I am trying to say is I think Facebook has become its own foe - it is trying to tick so many boxes to keep up with all the other social media, I think it has just lost it's way and over complicated things. I think I read somewhere the other day, or was told by one of my twitter pals that there are over 40 different social media platforms - and Facebook cant be all things to all people!