Be Mindful Of Grammar
Unless you are targeting a demographic that does not particularly value traditional English syntax, stick with regular spelling, grammar, and formatting in your social communications. Don't use ALL CAPS in your post titles, or excessive special characters and punctuation. Make sure there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in your original content. This just gives your friends the impression that you are proud of your social presence, and make the effort to present yourself professionally. This will impress many people who are unaccustomed to seeing correct English writing in websites, blogs, email, and social networking profiles.
Don't be afraid to take content that you find fun or stimulating and share it with your social community. YouTube videos are a perfect example of the kind of content that is frequently borrowed and shared amongst social network participants. If you are the first person in your community to share that content, regardless of whether you were the original creator or not, you can gain credibility with your community for being someone who knows where good content is. And that can lead people to be more interested in initiating communication with you, especially when they find something relevant to what you are known to share with the community. So go ahead, dig into the newswires and video websites to find yourself something worth sharing with your friends.
Use Relevant Resources
Engage Social Influencers
Since you aren't a social influencer yet, you might as well see if you can learn something from interacting with one. Ideally, you want to immediately seek out who the influencers are in your community, and start communicating with all of them. Comment on their posts in a meaningful fashion, send them articles you think they might find interesting, ask them questions (people love to be viewed as an authority on matters). If you think they wouldn't mind you asking, see if they will share some tips for using the site. The ultimate goal with this is to make yourself known in a positive light to all the influencers in your community so that down the road you can leverage those initial relationships into rewarding partnerships. You'll know you're gaining traction when influencers start mentioning you in their posts, or use your content as a resource.
Market Your Social Networking Profiles
Don't forget to put your profile URLs on your website, blog, email sig file/stationary, and other profiles. Also put it on your mail stationary, business cards, postcards, flyers, business storefront, bumper stickers, calendars, pens, and any unique promotional items you regularly give out to support your real estate business. This will help drive new and interested parties to your profile who might not have otherwise thought to look you up on these social networks.
Advanced Social Networking Techniques
Those basic steps should really keep you busy for awhile. If you apply these techniques on a daily basis for six months, you're certain to make significant headway towards becoming a social networking influencer. Once you start to gather a following, here are some things you can do to help put yourself over the top.
Tie Your Social Networks Together
This goes back to branding. If you have a presence on several social networks, see if there's any way you can start to get the different networks you're on to start interacting with each other. Make mention of exclusive original content on Facebook from LinkedIn, for example. These kinds of cross-promotions can get your connections even more involved with your brand. If you can successfully get a contact from one social network to also add you on another, that just doubled the potential opportunities for interaction with that person.
Comments(0)