So, you’re coming up with a social media plan for your website or blog, and you want to ensure as many people as possible are going to find you via bookmarking, following, and connecting on various social media websites.
Great – so how do you do that?
There are a few approaches to getting your website out there. We all know that if you don’t start social media profiles and have links to those profiles (like the famous twitter icon), people won’t necessarily know you have a Twitter account. You don’t want your readers to dig through your text to be able to follow you on Twitter.
You also want people who love your blog to be able to get updates from you on social networking services, and to know when you’ve posted something new or updated a feature on your site.
… And of course, the more you’re talked about and the wider your social networking reach goes, the more you’re going to be indexed. If you’re searching for yourself and you’re not seeing your social media profiles in the first few pages, then you have some work to do.
Twitter Me This
People love Twitter. Microblogs give us the opportunity to find out what’s going on without having to read a lengthy blog. The more convenient we can make updates for our readers, the more they’re going to be interested in keeping up with us – and possibly going to your site, where they can dig in deeper.
Twitter profiles and entries tend to index quickly. With such a large number of users interacting and exchanging data, this isn’t surprising.
I’ve worked with people who have 2-3 twitters going on just for one brand or enterprise. They have their Seesmic or Tweetdeck desktops open throughout the day, tweeting and interacting. Is this a good thing to do? Well, if you can keep up with it, refrain from posting too much duplicate content and if you can keep your followers interested, then it’s absolutely a good thing.
Multiple Twitter accounts or too much presence within one social media network becomes bad for your brand when Twitter is as far as you’re going.
Deepen Your Reach
There are far too many great social media networks out there used by people across the world to engage with users in Facebook and Twitter only. If you’re only using these two networks, consider branching out. There are plenty of great social media tools that will allow you to manage multiple social media networks at once.
Consider some of the following tools:
Knowem.com – Knowem will show you what your social media presence is throughout different networks, and can help you find networks that would give you good exposure for your brand.
Ping.fm – Ping will allow you to implement and manage several social networks at a time. It also has nifty plugins for Wordpress and other similar services.
Hello.txt – Hello is very similar to Ping.fm, but you can manage multiple Twitter and other accounts using this network.
There are plenty more options out there, needless to say. Even if a social media network that gets less traffic than other networks turns one user on to your site or product, it could be well worth the time you invest in your profile.
