Social Media: a Little Discipline and the Right Tools

 You may have privacy concerns about people knowing too much about your personal life. Maybe you feel as though you have nothing truly relevant to say. We hear the “I don’t have anything to say that people would want to hear” excuse all the time. Maybe you just don’t care about social media.

Problem is, while PR professionals can help stage tweets and write Facebook content for their clients, the real value of social media comes from engaging in discussion with people who care about your brand. Building a community of those people who care to more effectively communicate both the good and bad news is what social media is all about. Brands that “get social media” understand that it’s all about interaction.

So, here are a few helpful and relatively easy tips to consider:

Diversify Your Social Media: If you’re concerned about privacy or divulging too much information, create different audiences through your social media outlets. Consider using Facebook only for personal matters. Don’t accept friend requests from people who are not personal contacts. It may sound counterproductive to the perceived “rules” of social media, but nothing says you have to accept a friend request in Facebook. Move professional acquaintances to Twitter and keep your personal business separate. Now that some sites are enabling grouping features (e.g. Twitter), you can use this feature to segment your contacts for specific types of news.

Get the Right Tools: Ever try to type a post on a common bar phone? It may work for teens, but not for working professionals. Pressing the “9” button four times to get the letter “z” is just painful. Pure and simple. Get a smartphone with a key pad, either QWERTY or touch. Make life easy on yourself.

Be Opinionated: So what if you’re not Oprah, Obama, Glenn Beck, Beckham, or Pratibha Devisingh Patil? You’ve got opinions. If you’re not the provocative type, then settle for the subtle and understated. The ultimate goal is to converse. If you walk out of a movie and think it’s the best film of the year, let your followers know. If you have an opinion on who will win the World Cup in South Africa, share it. You would be surprised how commentary on the most ordinary things will resonate with your followers and build connections to potential networks.

Just Do It: As the old Nike slogan espouses, you must decide to give it a try, even if it’s only a small start. Start with one post a day. That’s painless. Unless you’re Ashton Kutcher, social media is not a contest. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It just matters that you start the communications flow.

How did you get over the proverbial Social Media hurdle?