I was talking to a good friend of mine in Sweden a couple of weeks ago – he’s a savvy marketer and a sharp businessman. We’ve often talked about the difference in technology in the US vs. Europe. When I visited him a few summers ago, I was fascinated when he paid for a parking meter and purchased items from a vending machine using his cell phone. They’ve expanded that technology to include SO many things – it’s convenient, easy, smart and I’m still waiting for it to hit stateside.

He’s fascinated by our use of technology on the personal front – webinars, blogging, extensive use of social media. They’re just not quite there in the same way. Of course, he’s always been surprised by the American willingness to say say what we think – whatever we think!

I was explaining what I often talk to clients about – he was interested enough that I thought you might be too.  He likes the idea of blogging – but was curious how blogs fit into the ‘social media chain’ and how we teach using them – particularly for professional practices.

A blog serves as a hub – a home if you will – the place where your clients, customers and potential clients and customers can learn about who you, how you think, what you offer and sometimes what you believe in – if not personally, then professionally. It provides you a place to be part of the give-to-get culture of the internet. Provide real value and develop a following and create loyalty and trust while building your personal and business brand. You can compete no matter how small your business – this is true in a way it’s never been before – not on this scale and never for free.

Unlike traditional static sites where nothing much changes, there’s a reason to keep coming back to a blog, or better yet, to subscribe and stay updated and current – particularly if the people you’re following provide valuable information that you can really use.

All the other social media platforms you participate in can be used to share smaller bits of information and drive traffic to your blog and ultimately your website and your business.

To further the hub analogy, think of a wheel, with the blog at the center and all the social media platforms as spokes, leading back to the wheel and acting interdependently. You blog allows you to provide value to your clients and to showcase your work and your personality, which, because of social media, has become more important than ever before in business. Key is to provide real value – give away some of your best stuff. That’s a hard concept for people to wrap their minds around at first – it may seem counter-intuitive – believe me, it’s not. It’s the way it works. Provide so much value that people trust you and some of those people will need/want what you offer and happily pay you for it because they already ‘know’ you and know the value you provide, the type of person you are – the way you do business. There’s never been a way to showcase this before in quite this way – it’s brilliant and it’s simple.

Don’t know how to set up a blog? There are some great– even free – resources. WordPress is a an easy-to-use platform that you can attach to an existing site – there are many themes (think templates) that you can use, or you can have one custom designed relatively inexpensively. WordPress has extensive information, training and forums available – it can take a while to dig around and learn, but if you like to do it yourself and you have time, take on the learning curve and get it set up. If not, and you want specific resources, just email me and I’ll point you to the right resources for your needs/interests.

Don’t think it’s too late – the timing couldn’t be better. There’s still a huge window of opportunity to establish your brand and carve out your space online. I believe 3-5 years from now that will have changed and those among of who haven’t taken the time to get established are going to wonder how we ended up in “Siberia” – no offense to anyone – I grew up with my mother referring to everything not “HERE” as Siberia! Get busy, get blogging, email me with questions, or post comments – let’s talk.

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I gave a presentation a few weeks ago at the Seattle Artists Guild on Writing for Social Media. I used to do a lot of public speaking, and it’s been years – not sure I want to admit to how many. I was a bit rusty, but there was a buzz in the room afterward– people told me after that they learned some very useful things – I know I certainly did (learn a lot from them, not from me…).

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how different social media is for us boomers than it is for younger people. I read something the other day that fascinated me: teens today, who are using Facebook and MySpace will likely be connected to everyone they know for the rest of their lives.

Think about it. How many people have you lost touch with? If you had them all gathered on your Facebook for years and years, you’d have hundreds, if not thousands of contacts, and the girl who sat next to you in first grade might be a resource for a job, travel information, a place to stay when you’re in Mumbai – who knows?

A kid I went to grammar school with is the head honcho of one of the big NYC financial firms – at least three family members sent me the article from the New York Times at the end of 2008 about his $1.2 million year end bonus.

What I remember most about him is that when we traded clothes on our dolls – his GI Joe and my Barbie, his mother called mine and told her she didn’t want us playing together any more. If you’re reading this (doubtful), you know who you are – find me on Facebook! Oh, and I remember he collected pencil shavings in a coffee can.

But, I digress. Do you think, had we stayed in touch (the doll clothes incident notwithstanding!), that he might be a good person to be connected to on Facebook or LinkedIn? That keeping a friendly relationship, even if we only communicated once in while might benefit us both? That’s the opportunity with social media.

Obviously, the younger you are, the more time you have to amass your online social database and keep it vibrant and active. And, for the rest of us, there is the beauty of the degrees-of-separation theory.  We can still catch up, especially if we know people who know people. And, finding people you used to know and reconnecting is (for me anyway) part of the voyeuristic and fun part of social media. There are so many people I think of, am curious about, but don’t want to contact in a way that requires a lot of commitment. And, I find keeping in new touch with some old friends is really satisfying – and it’s easy to let go of the ones you don’t want to stay in touch with – without hurting their feelings.

One of the biggest questions people had for me in Seattle was: is spending time on social media, with the aim of building your business worth the time, because it seems so time consuming. The answer is yes. And, it is time consuming so it’s good to have a plan.

Being efficient is definitely an issue, because sometimes you get on social networking sites and you start to feel like your time goes down the rabbit hole and you can lose hours at a clip, and most of us don’t have that kind of time to waste, and it can leave you feeling tired.

SO…my recommendation is spend the time it takes to get to know your way around, whether it’s Facebook, or LinkedIn, or any other site you decide to use. On Facebook particularly, get to know the privacy controls and think about WHO you want to be able to see what. I think it’s important too that you really spend the time getting familiar with others and being known before you launch right in with a business proposition. LinkedIn is more specifically designed for that – people are there to network, but still – you need to ‘bank’ some ‘social coin’ before you go spending (asking for favors/help/promoting yourself too heavily).

Make a calculated time plan of how much time you will spend on social media networking each day or week then do it and get out. Or, be aware that if you spend more time than you budgeted, it’s above and beyond what you planned so you don’t confuse ‘leisure time’ spent online with the actual productive business building time.

I’ve described the time spent as building ‘social coin’ which you get to spend later on when you’ve banked enough of it. Here’s a simple plan and a way to build your ‘coin’. Find 2-3 groups on 1 or 2 sites that speak to you. Don’t just join groups where people do exactly what you do. Join groups where your target audience hangs out.

You can spend some time at first ‘lurking’, getting a feel for the conversation/discussions taking place – or spend some time and read earlier posts to get a feel for a group or site and know whether it’s some place you could contribute something of value. If it is, then jump in and start participating by sharing useful, valuable information and insights on a regular basis. A few times/week is adequate.

Be sure you really say something meaningful. The occasional “great article, I agree” kind of comment is OK, but you need to add something to the discussion for people to take notice of you, and that’s what you want: to show up, contribute and have people start to get to know you. Eventually that will lead to all kinds of contacts and opportunities.

I’ll be writing an article and providing some tips for ‘non-writers’ as soon as I have the time, so please come back if that feels like you! Over and out.

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