You’ve just received a private message from someone on one of your social media accounts, and it reads something like this:

Offering a special to your readers or followers via social media is smart, however, there are 2 problems with the above offer:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you have encountered people who bulldoze every conversation with self promotion, which is about as effective as the street corner preacher screaming at passing pedestrians through a bullhorn.

Social media can be one of the greatest marketing tools in your business’ arsenal, but how do you engage and promote your business without turning off your reader?

Give value first, listen, and repeat. After several cycles of that, you have earned the right to ask. One of my favorite books on this topic is Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

One of the most common questions I hear from small business audiences is, “There are so many social media channels, how do I use them all and have time to run my business?”

I recommend getting familiar with one social media channel for a few weeks, then add one new channel at a time. It is better to be great at something than to not suck that bad at everything!

One great resource I’d recommend is Twitter Power 3.0, written by my friend, Joel Comm. He is an ace at all things social media, yet explains everything in an entertaining non-geek language.

1. Create a good looking social media banner. If you aren’t a design ace, find someone on Fiverr to design a banner for you for $5.
2. Join a feed service like Feedly to help streamline your reading and industry news.
3. Join Buffer to schedule your Tweets and other social media communication.
4. Join Hootsuite  to help monitor your conversations and to communicate with your customers on Twitter.You can get up and running with all of these within an hour, and begin to enjoy the benefits of growing your business and credibility. 

Here is a short video I recorded for a small business audience I spoke to recently:

Here are a few tips:
– DO NOT make every Tweet a promotion! Become a source for content that your customers appreciate.
– Upload a picture PLEASE! If your profile pic is that little egg that Twitter uses as a place holder, no one will follow you.
– Follow other people.While there may be a post or two that go viral quickly, building your brand online takes time and effort.Please let me know what you think of these tips, and don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help you or your business in any way!