The networked consultant: Using social media, Part II

18 June 2012 – Melissa Mannon

In my previous post I discussed the value of using social networking platforms for networking. In this post, I will discuss how to use social media for marketing by focusing on building an awareness of your “brand.” Social media provides an opportunity to present yourself and your business to diverse audiences in diverse ways. Taking advantage of multiple platforms to let potential clients get to know you can help you build a reputation as an “expert” and to create a public persona that invites trust.

Social media provide a platform that allows you to show your professional face and a little of your personality. When you use it properly, your potential clients may be first attracted to the work that you do. They may then stick around to learn more and find that your personality and outlook jives with theirs (or doesn’t) before they even get to meet you or talk to you. In the last post, I briefly touched on a couple of social media platforms you can use. Rather than exploring individual platforms in this posting, I will focus more on how platforms can work together and what general rules you can follow to get yourself noticed through your social media presence. Before I do that, I want to discuss just one tool that I think deserves a little extra attention.

Blogs

Small business owners (including me) relied on web pages as their sole online face for many years. Social media changed all that, beginning in the late 1990s with the “blog.” Unlike web pages, public blogs invited readers to leave comments and soon, people all over the world were exploring new ideas and responding to them in a way that we never before could. Within ten years of its start, the blog became a valued tool for businesses to reach customers. The best blogs are at least somewhat informal, injecting some personality behind the words on the screen. It is the perfect tool for a consultant who relies a great deal on personality to drive business.

A consultant’s blog can include news about your business, your ideas about your field, links to other people’s ideas and more. As a blogger, you have a responsibility to encourage comments, to respond to comments, and to seek out other blogs on which to comment. Blogging is most beneficial when it involves a give and take between you and your reader. Let the customer know that you care about what they say and understand that as a consultant you can often learn from your readers–about what they want from you and how you can best deliver that. As a public history professional, you should be good with words and filled with ideas about how to best help your communities. Use your blog to highlight these skills.

Diversify Your Online Presence and Follow a Few Simple Rules

Social media sites work together to give potential clients a look at your work from various angles. Some platforms invite wordiness (as with blogs). Others invite brevity and wit (as with Twitter.) You can reach out to people through video and audio (as with YouTube). Give potential customers a variety of ways to experience what you have to offer. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Encourage people to visit you on multiple sites. The major social media platforms currently used by businesses are: Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Blogger/Wordpress, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Yelp, and most recently Pinterest. (You will notice later in this post that I do not use them all.)
• Different people have preferences for different sites. Be prepared to overlap information so that you make sure you reach all of your potential clients.
• Remember that anything you make public is available for everyone to see. Remember to act as professional online as you would in any normal public situation.
• Make sure you provide a brief description of yourself on each platform so people easily recognize your site and understand who you are and what you do. Be clear about who you are and what you do before you use social media. Write a business plan and a business mission if you don’t already have one!
• See social media work as one of your normal, everyday tasks. Make sure people get new information from you regularly.
• Link to each social media site on which people can find you through your main business web page
• List your social media sites as part of your email signature, on your business card, at the end of articles you publish and in other places where people can learn about you.

My Social Media Business Model

You will find my business all over the Internet. I have a standard business web page. I write on a blog twice a week. My business has a Facebook presence and I have two related Facebook sites. One focuses on a specific collaborative business project with which I am involved. The second focuses on a cultural heritage topic of specific interest to me–cross-professional collaboration. This site does not deal directly with my consulting business, but people have come to think of me as the museum, library, archives lady in part because of it. I have two Twitter accounts. One is for my business. The other is for the specific business project for which I also have a Facebook page. (This particular project also has its own web page.) I am on Google+, where I post information similar to that which I post on Twitter and Facebook. I have a YouTube “channel” where I post videos of my presentations and information about my work. I have begun playing with Pinterest.

In short, I use various tools to give people a lot of information about me and my business. Because I am spread across the Internet, people can easily find me and my name pops up in many searches. Incorporating keywords on most social media platforms and hashtags in my Tweets helps search engines pick up my name and ideas. I get many people visiting me because search engines have keyed in on topics I discuss frequently, such as “collaboration,” “community,” and “cultural heritage.” I also make sure I pay attention to what others are posting so I can work to create back and forth dialogue that not only interests me, but also interests others and gets me noticed.

If You Build It, They Will Come

The Internet is a big place and there is a lot of opportunity to connect with your most obvious focus groups and also to explore new ones. You must convince people of the value of your ideas so that they want to “follow” you, hear what you have to say, and interact with you. Post what interests you and pay attention to how others react to it. Create your own online community by exploring various social media platforms and choosing those that best relay your message. Social media “marketing” will build your reputation and help drive business to you.

~ Melissa Mannon