Creating a Solid Social Media Presence in 5 steps

In May 2011, I started experimenting, reading, researching, and launching the beginnings of a social media campaign for PartingOut.com. After a year and a half of trial and error, I have created a strategy for creating a social media foundation for any new start-up.

One thing I know is you have to like, follow, add, friend, and promote others before they will do the same for you.

1)      The list of social media networks you could potentially create a company profile for continues to expand daily. So what to do first? CLAIM YOUR REAL ESTATE!

•         Claim your company's name for every social media outlet possible (regardless if you frequently use it or not, claim it!) Why? Because you want your company to be the result for any search related to that site.  Create Profiles!

•         A few of the lists that got me started are:  http://www.instantshift.com/2008/10/19/list-of-top-social-media-network-sites/  & of course, Wikipedia has an extensive list as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

2) Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, FourSquare, tumbler, and Flicker are some of the best for me because I can share content between them. For instance, taking a picture with Instagram can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Then I can download that picture and upload it to PartingOut’s Pinterst boards and create a short blog post with it on Tumbler. Less work and more reach for every activity is key!

•         To make this process less repetitive and also to keep your company motto consistent, create a short description (one sentence), small paragraph, and short essay of what your business is all about. You will then be able to copy and paste this information into your profiles, news feeds, short descriptions, etc., and cut down on time.

•         Once these profiles are created the next step is to find and friend/follow people who would be interested in your company/product.  But, how do you find them?

3)      Create Your Master “customer characteristics” List

• This is a list of keywords you believe your customers would contain in their profile names, such as, on Twitter, where user names are not always first and last names. Also, look for words used to describe themselves in their “about me page” on Facebook, or words they would use for board titles on Pinterest. Ask yourself what topics your customers would share on Google+ and what picture titles they would be using on Instagram. Those are the worlds you need to know and keep filed away.

•         For instance, for PartingOut.com, “Mopar” is a common word within users' Twitter screen names who would be interested in our website. I follow them and hope they will follow @PartingOut back. “Speed” was a great keyword to search for on Pinterest Boards that led me to some of my most devout followers (of course, I had to follow them first). And “car guy” was probably the biggest home run to finding potential customers on Google+ and Facebook.

•         Now you have a dozen accounts and are following hundreds of people/boards/profiles etc. How do you get them to take the bait… and follow you back?

4) Interaction! You need to “like” and comment on as many of the accounts you follow as possible. Once people start to notice you, they will be interested in your own profile. Hopefully, the magic will happen, and the number of people following/liking/friending you will grow. 

•         You should split your own updates, with half being about your company/product and the other half being about interactions with others. Repost or comment on news someone else shared about your industry; share others' photos and post questions, or even more importantly, answer others' questions!

5)      See the pattern?

•         Seek out people through words they use in their profiles that tell you they might have an interest in your product

•         Friend/Like/Follow/ them

•         Interact with them!

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