My involvement in social media has snuck up on me! Sure, I used Facebook to reconnect with old friends and become more connected and involved in the lives of my friends and family. But in the past year, I’ve found myself using social media for business purposes. I’m blogging, tweeting, following, friending, tagging, and all sorts of other things that I never expected to be doing! In the beginning, it felt overwhelming, but I’ve learned a few things that have made it more manageable that I thought I’d share. I’m hoping that you will share your tips too!
1. Be strategic about what you share and where. It is tempting to want to send everything everywhere. But it may not be the best approach. Figure out where your audience “hangs-out” in the social media world and go where they are with the messages that will interest them.
2. Separate your personal social media communications from your personal ones. There’s nothing wrong with letting your business audience get to know you on a personal level, but they don’t need to see pictures of you and your friends celebrating on a Friday night or be privy to your personal information and activities, or your friends’ activities—which you can’t control.
3. Work smart and not hard. There are free, scheduling tools like Hoot Suite that will allow you to schedule all of your twitter and facebook posts ahead of time so you can be more efficient with your time and resources.
4. Keep the “end” in mind! What do you want to accomplish with your social media efforts? More clients? More revenue? Stronger relationships with current clients? If you don’t know where you are going, you won’t know how to get there—nor will you know when you’ve arrived! So set goals and monitor progress!
5. Educate yourself! I’ve spent the last few months taking classes, participating in webinars, and following what my competitors are doing with their social media! There’s a lot to learn—but like anything else— it takes time, study, and practice!
To learn more about social media and how to use the different approaches more effectively to increase business, check out W.I.T.S. new classes in Facebook Marketing, Twitter, Internet Marketing, and You Tube! They are all customized for fitness industry professionals and mentored by successful, established professionals in the field!
These are some very useful tips to help businesses grow. People tend to think that the main stream social media is more so for their personal lives and connecting but with how huge the internet has grown there are so many more people in the market to reach out to that was never possible before. I always thought Linked In was just for the business side and sites like Facebook were just for personal connections myself. YouTube I found is a great source for me in finding new exercise routines because you can actually see how to properly do the routines in a given workout, lifting weights effectively, and other basic moves with your workout that will less likely cause harm than just by reading the ‘how to’s’. On the business side, you can be in different cities/states and connect with people to branch out making yourself well known and more likely to gain clients. People do likely popularity so if they see you or notice that you have a following, they are more than likely going to chose you because they will have remembered you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Bonnie. I agree, You Tube is emerging as a leader in social media marketing, and is a perfect fit for fitness industry professionals. I too use You Tube to learn different tasks, activities, exercises. It’s much easier to learn by watching then reading –for me. Thanks for contributing!
Very good point about the social media tools. I sort of forgot that there were things out there to help me work through things quicker so I’m not constantly dedicating my time to upkeep for this part of my business. Truly a helpful reminder for a busy business owner. Love the blog!
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Our company social media person shared with me how she organizes and distributes our monthly themed message with Hoot Suite. This is a free service that allows you to line up your posts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. It saves her hours upon hours of sending them manually. She can then tie them all together to share our valuable messages from the company. Even better is that we can all take the time to answer and service the questions or concerns of our clients and educators. There is so much to learn and sooooo much to gain. Work smart and not hard is a saying. Start doing it and watch the benefits to your business and life change dramatically. I am very proud of my team for actually doing it. Taking time to watch our courses can be frustrating when you have other things to do. The reality is that when you finish a course you want more. There are enormous benefits that lead to more possibilities. I learn more and more everyday with how to use social media. Why wait when your competitors may not be. Start by looking up Hoot Suite and use it with a purpose to reach your 2014 goals.
My goal is to organize my social media posts for 2014. Checking out the Hoot Suite.com! Thanks for the hot tip!