Revisiting Sharing Info on Social Media

Often when I speak with people about using social media to create relationships online for their brand, book, cause or business, their major concern is how much time it takes to actively participate on, for example, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

And my response is that, while it is very important to share info rather than "sell" your products or services, it doesn't have to take a lot of time to do this.

Yes, in an ideal world you or someone in your company would post original blog posts at least twice a week on subjects related to what your company offers.

But we have to accept that we don't live in an ideal world.

In other words, ongoing blogging may just not be realistic for you or your company.

But don't despair, there are numerous ways to share quality info.

Here is one imaginary example:

Let's suppose you have a retail store in Los Angeles that sells specialty items. You've just been able to obtain several Belgian lace items and you want to interest your connections on social media in buying these Belgian lace items.

You don't want to just tweet "buy this Belgian lace" nor do you have the time to blog about how beautiful these pieces are.

What can you do?

You can do a Google search and find an article someone has written describing Belgian lace. (Someone who doesn't sell this lace.) Now you link to this article in your tweets and your Facebook Page updates.

Then in one or two follow-up tweets and updates you can state that you've just had the luck to obtain some Belgian lace items for your store. You still don't say "buy these items" but you've already shared info about the value of these items and people know you have a retail store.

In following this strategy, you've provided information that creates an interest in a niche market – Belgian lace items – and then you've established that your store has several such items.

And you've done this without writing any blog posts. You've simply shared information through your social media activities.

Yes, this does take some strategic planning. But as you get more and more familiar with this type of social media info sharing, you will be able to accomplish your objectives in a relatively short amount of time.

If you're still concerned how much time social media participation might take, start slowly with just one site. Then expand to additional sites as your comfort level increases.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller and Yael K. Miller can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MillerMosaicLLC

Miller Mosaic has a set of three how-to social media videos – Twitter, Facebook Page and LinkedIn – to help book authors and other professional service providers set up their accounts on these sites.