Beyond Your Home Page

With facts, apps, and information moving at dizzying speed, it’s a challenge keeping up with the ever-increasing stream of data and the various ways that are available to connect and market your brand and expertise. Savvy users and professionals understand that maximizing social Web vehicles is a key component to distinguishing your profile. James Andrews, founder and CEO of Social People, a boutique social media marketing agency, offers several tips and strategies to ramp up your social media visibility and increase interest in your professional brand.

• Use Google Alerts to receive immediate information about topics and issues of interest and to find out what’s being said about your industry or specific company. You can set specific search parameters and terms, and Google will post alerts whenever there’s news or information about it to your e-mail or smartphone. Keeping abreast of important industry information and reporting or commenting on it keeps you relevant and current with what’s trending.
• Optimize your Facebook fan page as effective real estate on which to produce and promote written and video content, including a tab for live Web-streaming video. This could include your speaking events and other professional presentations. Andrews says, “Think about this as your own channel and curate it as such. If it were a magazine you would have to strategize, organize, and manage it the way an editor would.”
• Practice smart listening. “Just setting up a profile to say you have one is not enough,” Andrews stresses. “You need a strategy. Interaction doesn’t require a lot of time, but it does require a system of listening and responding. Listening is just as important as posting. Having a two-way conversation is essential to success in social media and is a valuable way of keeping your finger on the pulse.” Just as important is discernment: knowing which conversations one should listen to and become part of. Know what the market is saying about what’s happening in the industry, and how it relates to your business and expertise.