…Is A Lot Of Progress Over The Long Haul!
I am a major tinkerer. I am constantly changing the way I go about my business. Mainly because I still haven’t hit upon the magic formula yet. I don’t know that I ever will.
As a small businessman, I have three principle duties in my business: marketing, execution, and admin. Like others in my shoes, when I am focused on one of these, I am NOT focused on the other two. This poses a classic problem for someone like me.
And I am always trying to figure out how to improve my skills so that I can improve upon all three. But the purpose of this post is to share some ideas on how to leverage social media into the marketing side – from the perspective of a sole practitioner…me.
What I strive for each day is to spend sixty to ninety minutes marketing myself and my company. And I use social media tools to help me execute my marketing a little more efficiently, while mixing in more traditional tactics. How do I spend that time? Doing the following things:
- Each day, I make it a point to identify at least one new prospect, one new company that I would like to do business with – and add to my database.
- After I have done this, I make an attempt to identify the person(s) in that organization that I need to connect with.
- The principle tool I use to do this is LinkedIn. Through my connections, it is entirely possible that someone in my network knows someone in this organization. Thus, I spend a little time fishing through my connections to see who they know.
- And if I find a connection who knows my new targeted prospect, I reach out and ask them for help.
- I also spend time on Twitter each day. Here, I am working to strengthen old friendships, and making new friends. I try to dialog with at least five people a day.
- I spend a little bit of time on Facebook each day to get to know my clients and prospects a little better. To me, FB is the best tool to really get to know someone. I observe what groups and fan pages they join, and watch how they interact with people in a non-business environment. I find things to connect with them on. I also spend some time on FB to manage and share information on some client fan pages.
- On all of my social media platforms, I try to share meaningful information that will be of some use and value to my community. It’s important to have a “serve first” mentality.
- It is a goal of mine to post new content to my blog, or one of the many blogs I contribute to, at least once a day. I don’t always get there, but I sure try. The goal here is to be sure I am building awareness of my company, and demonstrating my ability to serve my community.
- I also track all proposals that have been sent to clients. If follow-up is necessary, I handle the task.
- I also track my list of proposals to be distributed, and take the necessary steps to move those along and get them delivered.
So these are the things I try to accomplish over 60 to 90 minutes – each day. What are other things you can do each day to leverage these tools to help market you and your business?