Social Media Illusions

Lynne Klippel is a best-selling author, publisher, and book coach who specializes in helping non-fiction authors write books that build their business and transform the world. For a f.r.e.e. assessment that will help you see your author strengths and opportunities, visit http://www.BusinessBuildingBooks.com. With her permission, she has allowed me to reprint her notes from a webinar we attended with George Kao. Enjoy! 

There are three great illusions in social media: that you must try every new shiny bright thing, that more is better, and that you must keep up by spending many hours every day on your social media activities. These illusions make us stressed out, guilty when we can’t keep up, and stop us from growing our business and writing our books. According to social media specialist, George Kao, these illusions are so pervasive in the online community that most people heave a huge sigh of relief when they learn that they do not need to believe them any longer.

When George told us that he only posts one tweet each week and spends just one hour each week on Facebook and LinkedIn, we were all shocked, especially since those brief social media tasks bring him more than $30,000 each month in revenue for his coaching business. George has learned that the quality of your actions on social media is much more important than the quantity of those actions.

There are three primary social media sites each author should concentrate upon: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Facebook now has more than 500 million users and fifty percent of them log in at least once per day so it is a rich playground to connect with people who are interested in your book. LinkedIn is a referral engine and a wonderful place to find potential clients and joint venture partners. Twitter is important for the media and for your branding as a way to spread your writing and wisdom.

George shared these seven steps to help you begin to optimize your social media efforts by wasting less time on distractions and spending more time on actions that will help you grow quickly:

1. Start branding yourself personally on all sites. Use your personal name for your first profiles so people bond with you and not your business name or book title. You can add those specific names later if you like but your personal name is your most effective brand.
2. Optimize your profiles so that your ideal readers and clients can easily find you. Update your profiles at least every quarter.
3. Carefully set your privacy settings on Facebook using lists so that some of your content is only seen by family and close friends. It is fine to share some personal photos with your entire list but any photos or content that is specific to a family event like a reunion or shows you in a non-professional manner should be only for family view.
4. Don’t aim for massive numbers of friends and connections, especially for people you do not know. Instead, connect with people you’ve meet or those who have something in common with you or your business. Quality contacts are best.
5. Spend some time each week connecting with people who could be potential joint venture partners for you or who have lists of clients who could benefit from what you have to share. Really get to know these potential partners and serve them, as well as their client lists.
6. When you have a teleclass or webinar, use your Facebook fan page to host discussions, take questions, and get audience feedback. This is a great way to connect with your audience and increase the number of fans you have.
7. Seek to add value to all your contacts by posting less but posting very useful information. In that way, when you do post, people will be delighted to read what you’ve shared.

By intentionally streamlining your time on social media sites, and taking actions that are aligned with your business goals, you will see more results from your efforts, decrease your stress, and end social media shame for once and for all.