How to Adopt a Social Media Lifestyle

While most small business owners are starting to realize that social media is a necessary part of any marketing strategy, as a social media coach, the question I get most often is how to add social media to a day that is already way too full. For those of us working as solopreneurs or small business owners, it may, at times, feel like we are working virtually around the clock so when are we really supposed to tweet, post or blog? I’ll admit creating a social media plan that will stick is like starting an exercise program. You just have to take that leap and do it. You need to look at it, not as a series of social media tasks that need to be done during the day, but more of a lifestyle change that you need to incorporate into your entire way of thinking. 5 tips to make the social media lifestyle change Coffee and Twitter: For most of us, a morning cup of coffee is sacred. Without one, our day cannot get off to a good start. Try to incorporate tweeting with your morning coffee, Instead of reading the newspaper, read your stream to find interesting articles to share with your followers. If you still need to read the paper, know that most publications these days are online and make sharing with your networks very easy. In addition to coffee first thing in the morning, take a moment or two to tweet during your mid-morning or mid-afternoon coffee break as well. Change the way you look at the world: Instead of walking through your day with blinders on, as most of us do, focused on the tasks we need to get done, try looking at the world with a different set of eyes. Examine everything -- images, articles, conversations you have with co-workers -- and use it as fodder for posts, blogs and tweets. This doesn’t mean that you need to be online all day, it just means changing the way you think to include a social media aspect to your day. Taking mental notes to save for your social media coffee breaks. Blog on the weekend: We all know that blogging for business is one of the most important factors to getting found online. It improves our SEO, increases our professional credibility and lets our audience know who we are and how we interact. Blogging can also be the most time consuming part of any social media plan. During your busy workday, as your taking in everything that is going on around you, take mental notes and save the blogging for the weekend when our schedule is more open. Most social dashboards will allow you to schedule posts to go live at a later time. Set an alarm: In adopting a social media lifestyle, it works to break your social media plan into bite-sized chunks, making it more manageable during the course of a busy day. At first, it may take some time to incorporate the social media lifestyle into your work day so setting alarms to remind you to take social media breaks – which are just as necessary as a coffee or bathroom break, can help at the beginning. Be mobile: I can’t stress enough how being mobile, whether it’s with an iPad, smartphone or laptop, can help integrate social media into your lifestyle. Whether it’s waiting in line at the bank, riding the bus or taking a 5 minute water cooler break, being mobile help you to stay connected, with the ability to tweet or post right at your fingertips. When you decide to include social media into your business and marketing strategy, it is important to be consistent and be present in order to truly engage your audience and increase your online visibility. By adopting social media into your lifestyle, by taking short social media breaks to tweet or post, by leaving your blogging to the weekend and by looking at the world with a “social media eye,” it prevents you from feeling spread too thin – a feeling that most small business owners know all to well.

Google Search Plus Your World: The Rise of the Social Engine

Are you ready for Social Engine Optimization? Google just launched “Search Plus Your World” which will finally test the mettle of Google’s now 62 million strong social network. Google+’s three new features will improve user experience and help connect G+ users to their social networking pages. Google’s broadening its reach in the social web by harnessing its own social graph, and this means your content, photos, and posts will be integrated into search. Obviously, this signals Google’s initiative for Social SEO which Facebook or Twitter has yet to realize. As the world becomes more social, real-time news and user-generated content (UGC) is more crucial than ever. As we all know Google puts a premium on quality and relevant content. Google+’s new features blends relevance, functionality, and real-time UGC not only for users but local businesses as well. Furthermore, Google emphasizes that these features make up “Your Web”, which suggests that aside from available public content from Google, a Google+ user will be able to view content made available by your Google+ Circles. The Search Plus Your World initiative starts by releasing three new features for Google+ users, namely: Personal Results – The feature’s name says it all – personalized content that you can view on your results page. Google+ posts from YouTube, Picasa etc. that you and your Circles share will be more visible when you search them via Google. Profiles in Search – An interesting feature that enables a user easily find people like celebrities and people from your industry that you might want to add to your Circles. Profiles and Pages – This feature allows a user to view Google+ pages and G+ user profiles related to a particular area of interest with just a click. Here’s a creative video from Google that shows Google+'s new features:

Path: The "Future" of Social Networking

Amidst fear of social media fatigue, those in the digital space tried to figure out how to engage audiences and refresh their social networking spirits. Then along came Path, a mobile social network available only to Android and iPhone users. Though it was first introduced in November 2010, Path's recent jump in popularity suggests that it has many of the principles people are now looking for in the social space. So, why is Path so successful? It's personal. Path is purposely designed to only work well with a small, established circle of people; with a set limit of 150 friends, it will never be like the sea of Facebook where everyone you knew from college is suddely in your news feed. Path puts managability back into networking, and makes social updating personal again. What's more, close friends are more likely to validate posts from friends, and validation is a key factor to digital engagement across all channels. It's minimally intrusive. The creators of Path included a special "Awake/Sleep" feature not just so a user could let their friends know it was after hours for them, but so notifications would have a set time to be shut off. In other words, if you tell Path you're sleeping, it won't push a single notification to you until you tell it you've woken up. Plus, because Path is designed for close-knit networks, the notifications are few, anyway. It's exclusively mobile. A network that exists only where its users physically are? Genius. These days, the socially engaged carry smartphones in tow everywhere they go. Part of why Instagram is so successful is because it can quickly be accessed via mobile to make an update, and Path follows the same model. It doesn't risk social media fatigue becuase mobile phone behavior is, by and large, vastly different from the behavior that occurs in front of a computer screen. Path (and mobile social networks in general) are accessed for short bursts of time over the course of the day. It's user-centric. The goal on Path is simply for users to have a way to share experiences with one another. It's not a place for brands, advertising, or promotions, which helps take some of the clutter of the "traditional" social network out of the equation. With Facebook and Twitter, it's easy to feel like a popularity contest is in place, and every update, photo, or link shared has to be well-received. Path allows users to get back to basics with a question both Facebook ("What's on your mind?") and Twitter ("What are you up to?") originally posed to users - questions that most have lost sight of since signing up. The next generation of social networks is still being defined, but Path paints a picture of what they could (and perhaps should) look like. Communication is personal and the relationships on Path are tangible, unlike so many other "relationships" across the social media spectrum. Brands and digital marketers shouldn't approach the next wave of social media usage with fear, however; there's a lot to be learned from Path, and its counterparts. Make a personal connection that feels real, and you'll be ready for what's next.