Help – what do I say on social media?

This is a “frequently asked question” in my experience, and it seems that many business owners wonder what to say on social media.  They are worried about saying the wrong thing,  and/or they simply can’t think of enough different things, or indeed anything at all, to say to make social media activity worthwhile.  A common misconception is that people only use social media to post about what they had for breakfast…

It’s not unusual for people to feel that they aren’t interesting, or they don’t want to sound like they’re bragging, and they know it’s not about what you had for breakfast……so their perception is that they don’t have anything useful to share on social media.

Newsflash…

…you don’t have to post about yourself or your business most of the time!  Here’s the thing:  there’s absolutely no need to continually produce original content to post on social media, in fact it’s far better not to.  Sharing other people’s content is far more valuable and will go a long way towards building your social communities and generating interaction and engagement. A good rule of thumb would be to make at least 80% of your social media updates not directly related to your own business or products.  However you can – and should – post links to your own blog articles whenever you produce them.  If you don’t already have a blog for your business,  you might want to read this article I wrote last year.

Ways to find shareable content

If you’ve just set up your social media accounts –  we’ll assume you’ve chosen Facebook and Twitter to start with – I’d recommend not posting anything for the first week or two.  Instead, just watch and learn from others.  Run a few searches to find other businesses in your niche, follow them,  then keep an eye on the type of things they post.  Do you find any of it interesting?  Chances are that you will – you might click a few links and find yet more useful information.  Would your colleagues also find it interesting?  Go ahead and share (on Facebook) or retweet (on Twitter).  Congratulations,  you’re learning what social media is all about!

To make sharing easier,  try setting up a few lists in Twitter and in Facebook.  This allows you to curate content from like-minded people or those in the same field of business as yourself,  without having to trawl through updates from all of your followers.  You can then simply visit your lists daily and quickly find anything of interest that you feel is worth sharing.

From my own viewpoint, I’d be lost without Google Reader.  It has been a real goldmine of information for me and I spend time every day going through my list of blogs and sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.  (I don’t share every link to all networks, I am selective about it).  Take a look at my previous article on Google Reader to learn more – I highly recommend you set up an account if you’ve not already done so – it’s free

Interact with others

Once you’re feeling comfortable on your chosen social networks and are starting to build a community, you will want to start giving back to others, perhaps by recommending them.  If you see a request for help and you know someone who offers that particular service,  all you have to do is reply and tag / @mention your contact and guess what, everyone benefits and you might well gain a new follower and/or potential customer.  And it goes without saying that if anyone recommends you, you should respond quickly and thank them.  This is one reason why you do need to visit your social media accounts regularly, to check for messages and mentions so that you aren’t leaving someone waiting and wondering why they’ve not had a response to their question.

And finally…..

The burning question – YES!  It is OK to mention yourself, your products and services occasionally.  But try to keep the self-promotion as subtle as possible.  For example, I might post something like “Need help using social media for your business?” with a link to my website.

Need help using social media for your business? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Don’t be shy!

In my business it’s important to be an active networker, both on and offline.  I meet a lot of people at networking events, collect business cards, and browse scores of websites and social media profiles. I’m often surprised at how “disconnected” many business people seem to be.

Look, if someone had told me a couple of years ago that in 2012 I’d be a member of several networking groups, on the management team of one, and quite happy to chat with strangers about business matters on a regular basis, I’d have said they were barking!  But this is what has happened – I started networking seriously last summer and haven’t looked back –  I really enjoy it and have made many valuable contacts.

If you want to be easily found online and offline (and why wouldn’t you, if you’re in business?)  -  then you need to integrate your communication channels.  Here are a few tips to help with your networking.

Offline Connections

• When you meet people at networking events, make a point of connecting with them on LinkedIn – always send a short personal message when you do this.
• Connect on Twitter if the contact is active there (it’s very easy to recommend/refer on Twitter and is always appreciated).
• Consider setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of your offline connections, and update it regularly.
• Add your social network link URLs to adverts, business cards, brochures, posters, newsletters and any other literature you use to promote your business.

Online Connections

• If you have social media accounts (please tell me you do?), make sure they’re updated regularly.  Having an account and never updating is worse than not having the account at all.
• Although it’s good to cross-reference occasionally, please don’t duplicate the same content across all your networks.  Tweets sent to Facebook and LinkedIn are particularly disliked.
• Automation tools have their place, but you still need to interact daily, in person, on all your networks. Your followers will soon realise if you’re never actually there.
• Establish a routine & find your best times to update (monitor engagement at different times of day).
• Make sure your profiles/bios are fully completed on all networks – give as much information as possible about your business, but do add a few personal touches too.
• Brand your accounts – be consistent with your logo, colours, background images etc. as well as your “voice”.
• Always include your social network links in email and forum signatures.

The takeaway message here is that you need to make yourself highly visible both off- and online.  Are you ready to step into the spotlight?

Need help getting found online? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Pinterest

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 3 months, you will be aware that Pinterest has been making headline news, and not just in the blogosphere (although I have to say I have never seen such a slew of blog posts on any topic in such a short space of time!).  The BBC, as well as several national newspapers, have run articles on Pinterest recently. A high percentage of Pinterest users are women, and you know how good we are at spreading the word about anything!  Pinterest recently became the fastest ever site to reach 10 million unique (US) monthly visitors

What is Pinterest?

Simply put, it’s an online pinboard (actually, a group of pinboards).  You set up a number of boards based around particular niches or concepts, and then “pin” images (or videos) of your products/services.  These are then “repinned” by other members. All images/videos link back to their site of origin. It’s especially good for creative businesses (web/graphic designers, photographers, interior designers, crafters, catering/restaurants etc).  Images of clothes, shoes, food, hairstyles, exotic locations, beautiful interiors, handcrafted items abound.  However, virtually any business can build a presence on Pinterest – if you use images in your blog posts (as you should) then these can be pinned and of course they link back to your site…….get the idea?

The compelling fact about using Pinterest for business is that it drives massive amounts of traffic – latest statistics place it above Twitter in the “traffic league table”.  So, as a business, you really do need to take advantage of this and get pinning! I’ve only been on Pinterest since January and already (via Google Analytics) I’m seeing traffic referred from there.

“But”, I hear you cry, “I just don’t have the time to manage yet another social media account”…….  Well, the good news is you don’t have to! Read on to find out how I can help you set up and manage your Pinterest account – all you’ll have to do is watch as traffic starts flowing to your website!  Oh and please follow me on Pinterest too –  link is on the right hand side of this page

The Pinterest Management Package – £60

• Setup of Pinterest for your business
• Creation of 10 boards related to your niche
• Pinning your content/products/services on a regular basis
• Repinning by me of the above
• Promotion of your boards via other social media channels

As stated, the initial cost is £60 – I suggest we give it 6 weeks, by which time you should see some effect on your website traffic.  If not, and you don’t want to continue, that’s absolutely fine – you still have the account to carry on yourself if you wish.  If you do see an increase in traffic, and would like me to carry on managing your account,  the monthly fee will be £75 or just £50 if I’m already managing other accounts for you..

Want to get started with Pinterest? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

What is content syndication, anyway?

Let’s look at a couple of definitions:

The act of syndicating a news feature by publishing it in multiple newspapers etc simultaneously

Making information on a website available (preferably in digest form) for a wide range of uses, prime examples of which are RSS and Atom feeds. Syndication is a great way of making news updates, blog entries and podcasts immediately available to a Web audience.

Basically then, syndication is a way of sharing content across a number of platforms or publications simultaneously.  I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be beneficial to your business to be able to share your latest product news, forthcoming events etc with hundreds or even thousands of interested viewers.

How could this happen?  When you publish your blog post, or details of your event, you share it with various sites. These sites may then republish to other sites, and so the process becomes exponential.  From one piece of content you get multiple shares, therefore reaching a huge number of people.

Let’s say you have a business blog and you write a new post each week. Do you write, publish and walk away,  in the hope that visitors will mosey along to read it?  Sorry, but that just won’t happen!  You need to take a proactive approach and push that content out far and wide.

Get Started with Content Syndication

Here are 7 simple ways to get your content in front of more eyeballs than you ever thought possible……

1.  If you haven’t already, set up a RSS (“really simple syndication”) feed for your blog.  WordPress blogs have RSS built in, and for additional benefits, use a service such as Feedburner.
2.  Add a link to your latest blog posts on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.  Whether you also add them to your personal profiles on Facebook and Google+ is up to you (may not be appropriate for every post)
3. Add Facebook Like & Share, Google +1, and Tweet buttons to all your posts,  newsletters, event listings and product pages.  If you’re using WordPress it’s simple to do this via plugins (there are scores that do this job, but that’s a topic for another post!)
4. Use a service such as ping.fm to share your content to scores of online directories
5. Share your updates to Facebook and LinkedIn groups that you’re a member of –  only if the content is appropriate for the group, of course.
6.  Always encourage people to share, retweet, like, and +1 your content. This gets you in front of an increasingly wide audience.
7.  Given the recent exponential growth of Pinterest, I’m also going to encourage you to “pin” your new content whenever appropriate.  (If you haven’t signed up for a Pinterest account yet, seriously consider doing so!)

Benefits of Content Syndication

Aside from what we’ve already covered (getting your content in front of thousands of potential clients/customers), what are the main benefits of content to you and your business?

•  It’s a cheap way of reaching far more potentially interested people than you could ever hope to speak to individually or even collectively.
•  You’re boosting your online visibility by making use of social media, thus gaining massive SEO benefits.  You’re already using Google+ aren’t you??
• When people see you everywhere online,  they get the subconscious message that you are an expert in your field – as a result they’re more likely (a) to come to you as a client  and/or (b) to recommend you to others.

Do you use any other methods of content syndication and do they work well for you? Share below in the comments!

Need help with content syndication? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Get Started with G+

In my last post, I discussed some of the reasons why businesses need to establish a presence on G+ as soon as possible.  This time we’re going to go through the process of setting up your profile and Google Plus business page.   If you don’t already have a personal G+ profile, you will need to set one up.  If you already have a Google account (gmail, YouTube etc) then it’s easy – otherwise just go to http://plus.google.com

If you would like more detailed instructions, below is one of the best G+ profile setup videos I’ve come across – the process is explained slowly and clearly. It will be easy to go ahead and setup your own profile while watching/pausing the video.

Did you get your profile set up OK?  Now for the next step!

Set Up Your G+ Business Page

In your personal profile,  look on the right hand side of the page and you will find a button to “create a google+ page”.

After clicking this, you are taken to the next screen where you need to choose the appropriate category for your page:

Choose a category for your page

As you can see, there are 5 categories:

1.  Local Business or Place – includes any local business, e.g. restaurant, dentist, accountant, solicitor, hair salon etc.  If your business already has a Google Places listing, the details from that will be used, otherwise you’ll need to enter the business phone number and address.
2.  Product or Brand – according to Google, this would include cars, financial services, clothing, electronics – food and drink brands would also come under this category.
3.  Company, Institution or Organisation – also including charities and non-profit organisations
4.  Arts, Entertainment or Sports –  pretty self-explanatory (books, films, musicians, bands, athletes etc)
5.  Other – to be used when your business doesn’t fit into any of the above categories.

For all categories,  users will need to choose age ranges for which their page content will be appropriate, and there is a specific choice of “alcohol related” too.  Finally, you’ll need to tick the box agreeing to the G+ Page terms, before clicking the “Create” button Make sure you read these terms before creating your page – there are similar guidelines regarding competitions and promotions as there are with Facebook, so don’t fall foul of these!

Personalise Your Page

Congratulations, you have set up your Google Plus business page!  Now it’s time to personalise and customise the settings for your  page.  Firstly, you can give yourself a tagline (“10 words that describe your page best”, according to Google), and upload a profile photo. This would ideally be your business logo, but you can of course use any photo that represents your business.  Once you’ve created your tagline and uploaded a photo, click “Continue”.

You are then asked if you want to share this Google Plus business page with your G+ circles –  you probably won’t want to do this yet, as there’s no information on your page, so click “Finish”  (you can go back later and share your page)

Edit Your Profile

Click the profile icon (top of page to the left of the google search box)

On the next screen, click the blue “Edit Profile” button and fill in as much information as you can –  remember to use the “Recommended Links” section to put in details of your social media profiles, and other websites/blogs you own or are associated with.  Don’t forget to use keywords throughout your profile!

Customise your Photostrip

You will see on the profile editing screen, below your page title, the words “add some photos here”.   You can add up to 5 photos and they do not change  on each page load as with Facebook.  You could even get creative and split one photo into 5……   Just to get you thinking, here are a few examples.

Start Posting!

Woohoo – your Google Plus business page is ready to share with the world!  Once you’ve posted a few updates,  use “Spread the Word” (in the right sidebar of your page) to share your page with your contacts.

Just as with your personal G+ profile, you are able to add contacts to “Circles” – the default Circles for a Google Plus business page are Following, VIPs, Customers and Team Members, but you can of course create new circles at any time. On G+ (unlike Facebook), you are able to follow your fans back, and add them to your page’s Circles.  It’s a powerful way of connecting with current and potential customers!  Your followers can +1 your posts and you can  do the same for their comments –  all of this adds to your visibility in Google search.

So what are you waiting for? I hope this has inspired you to get your business   established on Google Plus –  please share in the comments how you’re getting on, or if you’ve encountered any issues.

Need help setting up your G+ page? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

What is Google Plus?

I know there are some of you out there that haven’t heard of Google Plus (I will refer to it as G+ for the rest of this article) – mentioning it often produces blank looks while chatting at networking events! So if you’re not aware, G+ is a new social network, launched by search giant Google on June 28th 2011.  Despite having initially been “invitation only”, the new network has grown at an unprecedented rate.

It is becoming increasingly important to use Google Plus for business, as I’ll explain below. According to this post by Paul Allen (“unofficial” G+ statistician), within 2 weeks it had 10 million users, rising to 38 million by October 1st 2011, and 62 million by December 27th 2011.  On January 19th 2012, Google CEO Larry Page announced that G+ now had 90 million users globally – more than 60 percent of whom use the site daily, and more than 80 percent of whom use G+ weekly.

Growth of G+

Equally interesting is the comparison with Facebook –  whose first 25 million users were added over 3 years, compared to G+’s 1 month.  On paper this looks astonishing, but when you consider how fast technology has developed in the 8 years since Facebook launched, it’s not so surprising.  A large percentage of the world’s population is now completely at home with social media, so the addition of a new network from a company as massive as Google, was always going to get a lot of attention.

G+ went “public” in September 2011, meaning that an invitation was no longer necessary to set up a personal profile on the  network.  On November 7th, business pages were launched, with this quote:

For business and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you’ll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello.

Further Developments

Another major development followed on January 10th 2012, when Google announced “Search Plus Your World”, a significant change to its search algorithm.   What this means in a nutshell is that when you search for something now, priority will be given to your friends’ and contacts’ online experiences rather than links and domain authority.  Moreover, this makes your G+ network very important.  According to Marketing Land,  SPYW is a massive heads up from Google to businesses to get themselves set up on G+.

The week after SPYW was announced, another new feature was introduced whereby you can share and join in a conversation directly from search results.

Yet another telling sign is that now,  in order to sign up for YouTube, Gmail, or any other Google product, you first have to create a G+ account.

Google is certainly going all out to integrate search and social, and these recent updates will have a massive impact.  Businesses will  need to get up to speed with the changes and have strategies in place to take full advantage.  Clearly, the most important action to take immediately is to set up a G+ business page if you haven’t already done so.   I will write about how to do this in my next post  - stay tuned

Meanwhile if you’re already using Google Plus for business, why not add me to your circles?  (see link in the sidebar to the right)

Need help creating shareable content and establishing your presence on social networks, or need help setting up your G+ page? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Lilach – Mumpreneur Extraordinaire!

Lilach Bullock is a social networking pioneer, business consultant, mentor and personal brand expert.  One of the most dynamic personalities in the world of UK social media, she is frequently credited with the accolade of being the first in the industry to actively leverage networking.

She launched and then sold her first business within three years of becoming a mother. Even now, she juggles a demanding home life with commercial commitments. Lilach’s contribution was recognised nationally, when she became a finalist at the Best MumPreneur of the Year Award, presented at Downing Street, where she was praised for her entrepreneurial efforts.

Lilach blogs over at http://www.socialable.co.uk

1. How did you get into the social media industry, did you have previous experience or work your way up?
   I fell in love with social media in 2008 when I had my first business which I sold just over 2½ years ago. I immediately saw the potential of how social media can help businesses and offered social media marketing to my then clients. Whilst I didn’t have any prior experience I did (and still do) spend a lot of time researching how to use the various different social networking channels, and different tools available
2. What challenges have you found in the workplace?
   That more and more people are jumping on the band wagon and are providing social media marketing services with very little experience/knowledge in the industry. A challenge which I’m finding increasing is people stealing my content and passing it off as their own.
3. How have you overcome those challenges?
   I try and provide great content and always give value. I’m a great believer in practising what you preach and have a large network across all the social media channels. I think in any business it’s important to stand out and be different and work hard at building my brand and being as creative as I can be. I also spend a lot of time researching the latest trends and news and try and stay one step ahead of my competition.
   Whilst I find it frustrating people copying me I’m learning to see it as flattery!
4. Who is your ideal customer?
   I work with solo entrepreneurs, coaches, online businesses and some of my very best work has been with charities looking to boost their social media presence. Some of them are start up’s and therefore don’t have a social media presence whilst others have been in business a while and need to be leveraging social media.
5. How do you find them? What marketing tips do you have?
   All my clients find me and are a mixture of referrals/recommendation as well as finding me online via many of my social networks together with my blog.
   I spend a huge amount of time online and haven’t been to a network event since I sold my business. I find that I can get better results with my time online.
   I also think that by having a good social media presence attracts people to me as they often ask me to create the same results for them!
   In terms of marketing tips I recommend you don’t just do one method and test/measure which marketing methods give you the best results. You should never “put all your eggs in one basket” and that applies to your product/offerings, i.e. think about having multiple income streams and also your marketing methods. You never know what is going to happen and in business things change very quickly.
   Remember that whilst social media is free it’s very time consuming to get effective results from and your time is essentially money.
   If you’re new in business network like crazy but make sure it’s targeted, know your ideal client and how to reach them. Always do your competitive research and try and be different. Stand out, don’t be shy and don’t be afraid to be controversial.
   My biggest tip of all is to give value and heaps of it. I get so much positive feedback from my blog for sharing loads of tips and that’s made a huge difference in terms of my content going viral, increasing traffic and ultimately getting sales.
   Don’t be afraid to try new things and don’t be afraid to do “old school marketing” For example, writing letters (as oppose to sending emails) can often have better results.
6. What advice would you give to women starting out in business right now?
   Set yourself goals of what you want to achieve within 6 months/a year. Find yourself a mentor who can help you, keep you focused, support and motivate you.Be prepared for things to go wrong, they inevitably do! Try and have a backup plan and set yourself realistic goals so that they’re achievable.Understand that a new business takes time, don’t believe and get lost in the hype of how easy it is to run a business. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. Be prepared for lots of hard work.

   Make sure you know your numbers and your business model works.

   Take action! So many people attend webinars/buy products/events on how to run a business etc. but ultimately no amount of courses will make you money. You have to do this yourself, there is no magic wand. I see many people buy product after product, attend courses and before they know it, 6 months down the line they’ve spent a lot of money and haven’t achieved anything and all they have left is a case of information overload. So if you go on a course/buy a product take the time to follow up and apply it in your business before buying another one!

7. Do you have any hobbies?
   Social Media?! Spending time with my family, I have a beautiful 7 year old daughter Emily. I love zumba when I have the time. Eating out is always a favourite, going to the Theatre and pre-Emily I used to love going to comedy clubs and have seen pretty much every UK comedian before they “made it”!

Back to the Past!

I recently read a thought-provoking blog post by Jeff Bullas, headlined “Why Social Media Will Disappear”. (great example of a headline that hooks you!) Basically the gist of it was that “social media” as we call it at the moment, will very shortly encompass all forms of media. Let’s explore this further.

Many of you reading this won’t remember the days of black and white television – those cathode ray tube TVs that measured about two feet from front to back, with a screen inches thick but only a foot across. You had to sit quite close to the screen to be able to see anything, but I can clearly remember “Watch with Mother” favourites such as “Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men”, “Andy Pandy” and my real favourite “Muffin the Mule”. The arrival of colour TV in our house in the late 1960s was very exciting. But the most exciting TV experience of my childhood and teenage years was undoubtedly the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 - we were on holiday in Cornwall and I watched it all on a tiny black and white TV!

First footprints on the moon

A few more of you might remember the famous BBC colour test card – apparently it lasted from 1967-1984.

Original BBC colour test card, 1967 - via Wikipedia

Back in those days, the only other things you could do while watching TV were sewing, knitting, eating or drinking (any others I’ve forgotten??) But just think what many of us do now – we have our laptops, tablets, or mobile phones with us, and we’re constantly interacting with friends to comment on what we’re seeing on screen. I’m not a fan of X Factor and during the last series I got quite annoyed on Saturday nights as my Facebook and Twitter feeds were taken over by the armchair critics! On the other hand, I’m sure I annoy a lot of people when I comment on tennis and rugby matches

Traditional vs “new” Media

Getting back to business as it were – in the 1960s, there was a limited range of media available for advertising / promotional purposes. Basically there were newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, cinema, and billboards. Apart from perhaps local papers, most of these would have been prohibitively expensive for a small business. Word of mouth would have been the best form of advertising – as it still is, to a large extent.

But, in addition to the above, let’s consider the range of media available in 2012:

• CD
• DVD
• Internet radio
• Podcasts
• Blogs
• Mobile websites
• Apps
• iTunes
• Satellite TV & radio
• Online video
• Online magazines
• Tablets
• Smartphones
• File sharing

When you think about it, in 2012, you really only need one device to access all these new forms of media – a smartphone or tablet. The number of people accessing traditional media will shrink dramatically – just look at the exponential increases in sales of devices such as the iPad! “I want it all and I want it now”, as the late great Freddie Mercury sang, has never been more true. We do want – and expect – instant access to news, weather, sport, films, music, books – and this is now possible.

Looking Forward…

Coming back to the title of this post – the future of social media is that social media will simply become “media”. In the blog post mentioned above, Jeff Bullas refers to “channels of convergence” and says that all media will need to be created with the “three screens” of TV, computer, and mobile in mind. Social media will become all-encompassing. Already, we’re able to share a huge amount of online information to a wide range of social networks. If you have no social sharing buttons on your website or blog nowadays, don’t expect many visitors! When I read a blog post I expect to be able to share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus at the very least.

With this in mind, when we create media, we need to do so with the knowledge that it must be shareable across all possible social networks. More than ever, it’s vital for businesses to establish a presence on the major social networks and to maintain that presence by frequent interaction and engagement with their communities. And, more than ever, a business must create and maintain a central hub, i.e. its website and blog, to be the point from which all content is derived and shared.

Do you still find traditional media of value? Do you intend creating more shareable content in 2012? Let me know in the comments…..

Need help creating shareable content and establishing your presence on social networks? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

New Year Initiatives For Your Business

 I have spent the last few days going over my successes and failures of the last year, and deciding what direction I will take with my business in 2012.

My achievements so far are modest, but I’m confident that I am heading in the right direction. I’m not foolish enough to expect instant results – to establish a well respected and trusted business takes years.

What I’ve achieved in 2011:

1.  I made the decision in April to set up a business as a social media consultant.
2.  I launched this website having had little experience of WordPress, and have learnt so much more about the software during the year.
3.  I took advantage of free resources – Business Link, ebusiness club, Angle, and HMRC workshops, thus educating myself on many aspects of business and marketing
4.  I attended a number of paid seminars and workshops
5.  I have realised that social media is just one marketing technique and it must combined with a range of tools for an integrated approach - hence I have educated myself on various other marketing techniques.
6.  I set up a Twitter account and a Facebook Page and worked very hard to build up an engaged community of followers.  This has begun to generate interest and enquiries.
7.  I have added training/coaching to my range of social media services
8. I have joined a business mentoring group which I feel sure will add value to my future development.
9. I’ve taken on the role of Operations Assistant at my local 4Networking group. This will consolidate my networking activities and help me to become better known in the area.
10.  I’ve established closer relations with a few business colleagues and have scheduled collaborative projects for next year.

My Plans for 2012:

1.  Consolidate my networking activities and concentrate on building trust with a range of local businesses.
2.  Continue and develop an initiative (in collaboration with others) to help business mums with young children who want to network but are hindered by lack of childcare / inconvenient timing of meetings.
3.  Deliver social/digital media training workshops at venues in the local area.
4.  Gain experience in public speaking (hopefully no. 3 will help with this)
5.  Target specific business niches to market my social/digital media services.
6.  Establish a client base for social media management programmes.
7.  Get involved with live-tweeting/blogging events
8.  Further develop my WordPress skills so that I can offer website/blog setup as an additional service.
9.  Establish additional collaborative partners in order to broaden my range of services.
10.  Last but not least – I will not allow those who have set themselves up as my enemies (in my personal life) to get in the way of my business aspirations!

Vervain Cats

If you’ve read my About page, you will know that I breed pedigree cats as a hobby – and every year since 2003, I have designed a digital greeting featuring one or more of my Vervain cats and kittens. Here’s my 2011 offering!

These are two of my current litter of Burmese kittens. In order to find suitable homes for my kittens, I post lots of photos on my Facebook page , and this then links to my Twitter account. Using social networks has made it a lot easier to reach  potential owners.  I actually have a lot more “Likes” on my Vervain Cats Facebook page than on my business page – but that merely confirms that Facebook is more effective for B2C rather than B2B.   I hasten to add that cat breeding is definitely not a business!

Do you have a hobby that you promote via social media?  Let me know!

Finally I would just like to wish you all a peaceful festive season –  and remember to take time out to plan your social media strategies for 2012!!

Need help with monitoring your online reputation? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk