Social Media and Business Integration
A year ago, I had a LinkedIn profile and was maybe thinking about starting a Facebook page. I had never written a blog post, much less developed a website, and viewed the whole social media phenomenon with a lot of skepticism — and a bit of trepidation.
Since then, I have developed websites/blogs for four businesses (including this one), each with an associated Twitter and Facebook account (in addition to my “personal” Facebook and Twitter accounts). Overwhelming? At times, but the effort has been clearly worth it from both a business and personal perspective.
Why? First, because I like to build things. One of the my most personally satisfying moments last year was seeing the fruit of my search optimization efforts for the Mango Math website result in several page 1 returns on a Google search. Second, I enjoy writing (other than when I feel like I “have” to write something – funny how that works). But the real promise is what impact an effective social media campaign can have on a business when it is done right.
I don’t profess to have done much of anything right, yet, other than what I have learned by trial and error. But from a business perspective I’ve definitely learned some things and see enough value to keep plugging away. For example, things got a lot simpler when I learned that it is fairly straight-forward to integrate your blog with Facebook and Twitter. Write once, post, and your Twitter and Facebook pages are automatically updated. I’ve also learned, however, that doing it that way isn’t always the most effective way to promote your message. Each platform has a slightly difference audience, which often times requires some slightly different messaging.
There are a lot of these little social media lessons I learned the hard way. Fortunately, Mashable (www.mashable.com) is a great source of tips and expertise on all things social media. If you are looking at developing a social media strategy and don’t know where to start, I found this article, 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration, to be particularly insightful.
