The Effects Of Being Anti-Social: Social Media and Your Personal Brand
By Contessa Gibson

The undeniable growth of social media has managed to engage a good few, prompt inquiry from some and alienate others.

Social media is an obvious opportunity for strategic business owners-if they are smart. The most critical element of social media is knowing how to effectively leverage the tools to get the results you need that will ultimately affect your bottom line.

An over sensationalized assumption for overzealous business owners is that the newfound media platform provides immediate access and outreach capability to the masses.

Think again.

For those looking to capitalize their brand via social media, you must tweet with purpose. Here are a few rules you need to understand for social media success:

1. Be fully aware of online influencers within your target space. Leveraging their influence provides excellent opportunities for partnerships, increased following and readership.

2. Create Credibility. Consistent, conscience communications that deliver value to readers are practically guaranteed to deliver credibility. Dedicated bloggers are increasingly becoming a center of influence, and are formally regarded by larger more prominent brands looking to effectively tap into their core customer bases effectively.

4. Social media will generally maintain low to no cost solutions, however the time and planning effort required is the investment to monitor. Effective content planning, an overarching strategy goal should drive any and all efforts.

5. Be overly specific with who you are seeking to target. The days of age and gender as sole outreach guidelines are over.

6. What do you want the people to do when they find you? Be very clear on how, when you want people to respond and have a response strategy to create closure to the conversation for any social media engagement that you initiate.

7. Delivering value is the name of the game. Sound market research on how your target market is prompted to engage is a sure way to strengthen the community around your brand.

9. Quick access to information, and opportunities for entertainment. Guided use, with specific goals are what make the winning difference among small business owners looking to capitalize.

9. Always listen before you act and monitor the situation. Have an infrastructure and create a framework. Plan ahead, benchmark, and
stay educated. Social media is actively evolving, so stay in tuned.

10. A variety of dashboards and social media services are designed to help you manage your online social life. Ping.fm, NutshellMail, and Hootsuite provide an opportunity to schedule updates, view status and correspond with your audience with ease.

Similar to your social life offline, social awareness, and routine engagement deliver unprecedented opportunities for strong personal and professional relationship building. All you have to do is show up. Good luck!

Contessa Gibson, a social media enthusiast, operates her boutique communications firm, serving marketing and public relations needs of fashion, beauty and lifestyle entrepreneurs. Learn more at www.onpointbeauty.com.