Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Have you considered how you are representing your firm through this medium? May you be hurting your connections?

Let me ask you a question: if we are talking at each other, can you call it social? I noticed that more often than not social media is not really social. It is not a problem with the medium, but with the users. Most people who want to connect with you are more interested in you hearing their message than listening to you. If you are a small business, you will want to monitor what might be said about your business, but you may want to consider how you build your business through sites like Twitter, Facebook, or any other social site.

   I noticed that the most effective marketers using these sites are backing up the connections made online with meetings offline. Sometimes it is favorite haunts that they all happen to frequent, or it is through organized meetings. There are tweet-ups and conferences, but most meetings will be from professional organizations or chambers of commerce. If you are not able to attend these meetings, or have any other face time, you cannot build a strong connection. I waded into these waters, excited that I could build my brand beyond my current network, so I focused on several sites. I did make connections, but quite a bit of investment was made with not much return. You keep hearing about people creating successful brands through these sites, and I do believe that you can accomplish this if you have the time and right product (and you do not sabotage yourself- more further on in the post). If you notice, most successful uses of social media play upon a current trend or concern in the public. For example, a guy manages to sell his house on his own using Twitter. He tapped into the frustration buyers are feeling with real estate agents and the real estate industry in general. This is why sites where owners list their homes are doing well.
   Another area where social is not too social is blogging. I have been tracking some trends by looking at what bloggers are writing. I have been looking for topics which relate to my business. This is a great tactic for small business owners. People who blog usually have a desire, if not a passion, for their topics, and they may reveal an aspect of your business or products that you had not considered. On these searches, I encounter firms that have set up a blog, but they have done so badly. For one, they do not permit comments. This tells their customers “we are not interested in what you have to say”. Using WordPress to create your site is great; however, you should not call it a blog if you do not want comments. Remove the comments section. Another problem is going through and setting up everything concerning the site. I saw a lovely site that had been in operation for a year and a half. There was an about page with nothing on it. There was no information to contact the blog owner. The social media buttons all lead to accounts for the theme creator. I am not sure what the site owner was trying to achieve. More commonly, people leave the links that came with the theme, and do not fill in the widget areas with their own info. This does not look professional, particularly if the site/theme has been active for a month. Going live with these items is not the end of the world, but you should take care of this stuff in the first week. I noticed that this happens when people switch themes.
    Some rules to follow when engaging in social media:
-separate your personal life/opinions into separate accounts form your business accounts. I have made this mistake, and now it is a bit hard to get out of it. Polarizing statements can cause people to dismiss you. I no longer follow several people who made juvenile comments, and I will not recommend their services.
-do not engage unless you are prepared to maintain that engagement. I see people rushing out to create fan pages on Facebook, to be on Twitter, or whatever the latest trend may be. Then they post the same information on their fan page that they posted on their other account, so often the user is seeing it twice. The other problem is that people seem to quickly abandon fan pages, accounts, or blogs, because they do not seem to know what to do with them.
-complete your profiles. Many social sites allow some profile, but I have noticed that these are often incomplete. Sometimes it is the site ( there are a few sites that have not allowed me to upload a photo or access some editing point for data- bad site design). I would include your Local Business listing on Google. I have been running searches to see how Google chooses which business will be in the 10-pack. Most firms have the most basic information entered when they do have a listing. This rule applies to the blogs as well.
-do not let set backs stop you. I use Q&A sites to help build my authority, but these sites typically have some users who are moderators who may be to happy to wield their power. I do not place a link back to my site, unless I feel that my site will help. With one answer, I felt that my site really did help further the answer, so I put in the link. It was removed by a moderator who was an English teacher deciding that I was only self-promoting. She did not bother to see if the site provided more help. Since then, she has done this to me again, but I press on. I found that if you question these moderators too much, you may create an enemy, which will cause more problems.
-do not be concerned with numbers of followers or friends. These sites are geared towards increasing connections, but if you are not interested in socializing with someone in person, why socialize with them on the net?  Quality should be your goal. Users seem to be using Facebook as a substitute for LinkedIn, yet they post more personal information on Facebook, so they can be in trouble of alienating people.

For a small business go into this medium with a plan, follow it, and evaluate to correct. Social media can be a great benefit, but remember the rules of how you would behave at a party. Do not tell someone that you are really interested in them and then walk away.

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