How to develop your social media skills on a shoestring
As a black professional female, you know that the social media world is huge and something you want to master.
For your business, your brand and personal brand, social media is one of the cheapest and quickest ways to build a profile. But where do you start? Here’s a few tips, I can share with you on how I’ve done it and the tools which work for me:
- Who are you online? Who do you want to be? Why are you going there? Get clear on these points
as we know social media is fun but if you want to build a credible business profile and contacts, thinking about who you are will affect who you attract and connect with. It’s getting back to the ‘who, what and why’ – which will help you to have clarity on why you want to use social media and the platforms (Facebook, Twitter etc) that you decide to use.
2. Use tools that work for you. This might seem obvious but think about the best tools and platforms for what you want to do. For example:
- If you have lots of pictures, Instagram is a great place to be. Social media makes you visible and pictures provide greater online engagement for building a following.
- For building large followings and creating conversations with your ‘fans’, a group and connecting with prospective customers, then Facebook is the place for you. The popularity of Facebook and the ‘ease’ of use, e.g. it doesn’t restrict the number of characters (like Twitter), make it one of the most important places to build an online presence.
- Last but not least! Twitter is great for building a large ‘relevant’ following quickly, while having multiple conversations on different topics at the same time. This might sound confusing, but for doing free research and making fast ‘relevant’ connections, Twitter has a number of important features.
Every platform has it’s pluses and minuses, so find the best for you.
3. Use tools that give maximum impact. Whether it’s to schedule your messages for the best timing or to look at your stats, there are free or inexpensive tools to help you manage your social media activity. For me Hootsuite for scheduling messages is fantastic and really helps you to be online, even when you aren’t. With the addition of analytical features, this tool makes it easy to see who is liking, sharing and engaging with your social media messaging.
This is a quick snapshot of what’s available and the tools to help you build your online business and personal brand.
How have you been planning your social media messaging? What tool’s are you using? Leave a comment below and I’ll see you online 🙂
#Afrowomanonline #Socialmedia #BlackWomenRising
