My friend Lynn Terry, a professional blogger who has successfully supported herself online for 16 years, agreed to guest blog for me about being super-effective and super-efficient with social media. I've learned so much from Lynn over the past few years and personally use her Social Marketing Results.
1. Achieving Great Results in 15-30 Minutes a Day?
I'm a big believer in efficiency: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. And my time on Social Media is no exception! Most people spend endless hours on social platforms with minimal results, but you CAN achieve results in as little as a half hour a day.
The key is to know your overall business objective, and your specific goals, and to set up Time Blocks where you focus only on achieving those goals. Short bursts of timed work result in higher focus levels, knowing you have limited time to accomplish your task. This works particularly well because being consistent is one of the most important elements to success with Social Media.
Tip: Know what you want to accomplish, get in, get it done, and get out.
2. Quality over Quantity
Most people are chasing the numbers, both in terms of how many “followers” they can collect and in how many updates they can put out through their social channels. Less content and fewer connections can actually result in higher engagement and conversions. Social Media is not a “numbers game” like most people assume.
There is so much content crossing everyone's screen already that you'll do well to focus on higher quality content that really stands out from the “noise”. Also, focus on a very targeted micro-group, and invest your time in turning those followers into raving fans.
Between higher quality content, and higher engagement, your fans will do much of your marketing for you in the way of shares and personal recommendations – making your work easier!
Tip: Invest more time in the type of content that will help your market most, or that they respond to best.
3. Engagement: The Call-to-Action
Stronger levels of engagement with your followers result in more views, higher loyalty, and also help your search engine rankings as well. Given how beneficial “engagement” is to your overall marketing strategy, it makes sense to invest small time on this element for bigger results across the board.
Tip: Ask thought-provoking questions. Not just for the sake of engagement alone, but with genuine interest in the responses. Ask your readers' opinions, ask them to leave a comment, ask them to share their own experiences. Let your reader know exactly what you want them to do next, after reading your social update.
Using Social Media to Serve Your Market…Instead of looking at how Social Media can serve your business, consider how you can use Social Media to serve your market. And not just your target market (meaning your ideal clients/visitors) but your market as a whole which includes market leaders, influencers, major brands & retailers in your niche, etc.
Done right, with a strategic Social Marketing Plan, you'll be amazed at the results!
Guest Post by Lynn Terry of ClickNewz. Lynn has been a professional blogger for more than 10 years, and has been working online successfully for 16+ years. Her newest release, Social Marketing Results, is helping people finally get REAL results – faster – from Social Media marketing. Not only does she offer a detailed course chock full of live examples that will work in any niche, for any business model, she also offers hands-on help implementing what you'll learn!
Fantastic post! I agree with everything you’ve written. I especially love that you recommend using social media to serve your market–that’s my philosophy, as well..
Fantastic guest post, Sue. You know how I feel about the numbers game. People are not numbers and I’m all for quality over quantity.
Write on!~
Lisa Manyon
The greatest use for me in utilizing social media
is staying in touch with people you meet or
know. The second use is to network virtually
with people.
Great post – I agree with point 2 that “Most people are chasing the numbers, both in terms of how many “followers” they can collect and in how many updates they can put out through their social channels. Less content and fewer connections can actually result in higher engagement and conversions. Social Media is not a “numbers game” like most people assume.” Relationships and genuine communication is never a transactional basis, it is always about listening, learning and taking time to get to know each other.
– Heidi Alexandra
This is a great post and spot on – I am a big fan of connection not collection. It amazes me how many people say to all and sundry “like my page here” instead of “please like my page is this topic is of interest to you”. I don’t want 1000s or random likes. I want people who want my info and will come back and engage with me.
Another pet peeve is pages where the author doesn’t engage or answer questions/comments.
I agree, Trudy, I try to stop by my pages every day and answer any comment that has been left.
I agree with number one, it’s what I teach my entertainment industry clients. I’m curious about Lynn’s perspective on what I teach about numbers based on her number two. In our industry the number of friends and followers is a commodity. Producers hiring people want to see that they have high numbers of social media followers to help promote their projects. It’s free advertising for them, so I encourage my clients to get their numbers up, after all, you never know who of your “friends” will be interested in the tv show or film you worked on even if they don’t “know” you personally.
It would be interesting to hear what Lynn has to say about your comment for the entertainment industry, Jessica. I’ll ask her to comment.
Hi Jessica & Sue 😀
I teach that “your total reach is your biggest asset” so we are not so different in our thinking. In my course I teach how to increase your reach faster, how to make A-List connections, and more. But #2 is still an important point, going back to having a strong objective and everything being in line with that objective.
Thanks, Lynn!
I try to limit my social media time to 20-30 minutes a day but confess that it’s difficult, especially with so many platforms and my desire to connect with people wherever they are so they can learn about what’s really in their food. I must say I’m grateful for the quality over quantity comment though. I’d much rather be connected to people on a real basis and feel like my information is making a difference in their lives.
Thanks for the post!
It is easy to let the time slip away, isn’t it, Mira??
Thanks Lynn for the excellent post. In reading what both you and LIsa said, I think that many people don’t want to devote the time to build those relationships via social media. For me it’s been worth the time investment because my social media connections have paid off in new ventures and new business.
Mel,
I think some people just don’t trust what isn’t face to face. It’s kind of like my grandmother not trusting the phone when she first got one. 🙂
Great post Lynn! I talk to so many business owners who feel that they must achieve big numbers on social media to be effective. What’s really important is building quality, solid relationships, with those who do follow you. These are the relationships that convert naturally into sales. Focus on quality and growth will happen organically!
-Lisa