25 Easy Ideas to Develop Your Social Media Presence

Travis McAshanSocial
Jun 2010

What is Social Media?

We have all heard about “it”, and we all know we need to be doing “it”. The only problem is most people don’t even know what it (social media) IS! Consider this your 5 minute primer. To get started let’s take the Internet definition from Wikipedia, which defines social media as, “Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.” I find that definition a little dry and prefer to think social media is simply about people connecting, interacting, and sharing online.

Why should I care about Social Media?

The answer is basically the same as why you should care about Google – social media is a great way to reach and engage potential customers. It’s a way to reach past the traditional forms of marketing and advertising and touch customers directly where they are, on their terms. If done right, can you can foster deep and loyal connections with your target audience. At the end of the day, don’t you want to be “hanging out” where your customers are?

The Big Kahunas of Social Media

While there are hundreds, if not thousands of options available in the social media universe, there are a select few that will give you the most “bang for your buck”. Starting with these important social media hubs is a sure way to find your customers where they spend time online. Here’s a brief list of the most important sites:

Facebook.com – the largest and most active social network in the world
LinkedIn.com – the business professional’s social network of the web
Twitter.com – fast growing micro-blogging platform
Youtube.com – the largest and most visited social video site online
StumbleUpon.com – the social discovery site for finding and sharing great sites
Digg.com – online user-edited news aggregation
And many others…

25 Easy Ideas to Get Started Today:

Create a Facebook.com personal profile… just GO DO IT
Create a Facebook business page (known as a fan page)
Create an easy to remember URL for your fan page
On your next event use Facebook events to invite people and get RSVP’s
Look for your existing business contacts and invite them on Facebook
Connect your blog to your Facebook business page (easy way to update)
Create a LinkedIn user account and profile
Make sure your LinkedIn profile is 100% complete
Link your LinkedIn profile to your business site and your blog
Use the group search feature and join the biggest groups in your industry
If you can’t find a group, create your own group
Find most relevant LinkedIn Answers categories and subscribe
Reserve your company name on twitter as your user-name
Create a complete profile including bio on Twitter
Find the twitter experts for your industry and follow them
Connect Twitter to your facebook so you don’t need to update often
Create an account for yourself on Digg (don’t use business name)
Subscribe to the most relevant category to your business on Digg
Befriend people who post relevant and interesting articles
Start submitting articles you think are exceptional
Create a StumbleUpon user account and download the toolbar
Select the categories most relevant to your business
Start “stumbling” and voting on sites you like and dislike
When you find interesting sites give them a thumbs up
Build your friend list with people who submit relevant sites

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