How Are You Using Social Media To Promote Yourself?

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I have been away for awhile and I feel I have neglected my blog completely. It is very telling through my stats that it needed some work again and get the momentum that it had before. In due time, I will  pick up the pace.

Yesterday I attended a social media seminar and how to use the new mediums to promote yourself and your business, and it  kept me thinking how many of us are using it, using it effectively, or not using it at all. You will be surprised how  many in the group still resisted the idea of using Twitter and other social media for that matter. It just got me thinking that if these people don’t get on the program many will become irrelevant and their business will suffer. There is not a person nowadays that does not have a smartphone with them. If they are not current how will they be reached or even visible to the public for that matter.  Although there are many applications out there, I don’t use all of them either and it is not because I have not liked to; but because I did too many that I eventually had to do away with a few. When you are in too many social networks and link each and every account,that becomes a bit  of an overkill. I did this in the beginning and found out that my tweets were duplicating or even triplicating across  the networks.  That could irritate  anybody!

So, I stuck with the Big Three and it has given me the best results. As of now Twitter and Linkedin seem to have reaped the most benefits to me. By posting relevant material and important links I have found to have a relevant following on Twitter and  now after many months they are turning into professional connections. Of all the social media sites Linkedin to me is the most professional and allows you to fully connect with others in the field. By using groups and fully participating in them, I have gotten wonderful resources and  information for my business.  I have reached the maximum of 50 groups and although it does become a challenge to read through all  the email, I do take the time to read and participate. Lastly, my Facebook page  that although still small, has been getting some ground. This is where my followers  receive my blog posts and other resources I find useful.  I love the idea of the page because you are able to show yourself as a professional but be a little social too and interact with your followers. What I did find challenging at first was to engage conversation and have others comment on my links. That seems to be changing now.

Now with Google + I still have got to get the handle on that one but in yesterday’s seminar they did mention the importance of  Google Places. If you do have an existing physical location, you can claim a page in Google Places and   they will map it and when someone looks for your type of business in a given area, they rank you not by keywords like before, but by the number of reviews and good reviews you have. Even if you are not with the specified area  just by the number of reviews you rank highly in the search. These reviews act as a  testimonial of sorts the ones we love to have on our website . We would love to have those as well on our Google Places page . As a freelancer, I did not see how that going to help me really, I work from a laptop (the beauty of our business) but if you do establish an office at some point, maybe this would be the thing to do. Ask the clients who normally rave about your work to write a couple of reviews on your business and see your name  rise quite quickly in the search engines.

I will definitely look into it.