One of the biggest problems of working by yourself from home is always being your own impetus. I’ve really been struggling with this and you might have noticed a lack of articles here due to that. This morning I put on some music and insisted I get motivated and get some actual work done as opposed to fake work that could be relegated to a few minutes here and there. I chose some offbeat music and one song that came up gave me the impetus for this article.
Called ‘My Boomerang Won’t Come Back’ by Rolf Harris I had to get to the end of the song to get my muse. If you don’t know the song it’s all about an Aboriginal who has a boomerang that won’t come back, he’s been thrown out of his tribe in disgrace and months later he’s given some great advice…in order for the boomerang to come back you actually have to throw it. Great advice I thought and this article sprang to mind.
I’ve done a lot of webinars, read a lot of blogs and asked a lot of questions. The advice I’ve been given is that since my business is online I need to really get involved in social media, get with the programme and be active on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I’ve spent some time trying to do all of this but with little success as I’m really not good at putting myself forward and that’s what this article is about, putting yourself out there and making yourself known. I’ve recently discovered people generally don’t know what I do and don’t know what a big part of the things I sell are. So I’m putting together a plan of action which includes tweeting about what I do, tweeting about what I sell and tweeting about my interests. In other words actually throwing that boomerang.
Yes, I know it looks as if I’m focussing on Twitter but that seems to be where I get the bulk of my interaction from, I currently have over 400 followers on Twitter and with only 62 likers on my Facebook fan page and about 100 friends on my ‘personal’ Facebook page I suspect that’s where I’m going to get the bulk of my customers. I’ve also automated my tweets so that they go straight through to Facebook and also to LinkedIn. Why did I do that? So that it looks as if I’m active there even though I’m not. I do try to post stuff to my Facebook Fan Page that is different to Twitter and I’ve also automated that so everything I post there goes through to Twitter. For some reason the system recognises as a repost and doesn’t then post back to Facebook.
Now, every industry has the forums and communities they should be participating in. You need to make sure you’re up-to-date with your industry needs and also your customer’s needs. I’ve found two that are really good for keeping in touch with my customers. One is Good Reads where you can participate in discussions about books with likeminded people. And the other is Twitter. Twitter is great as you can find the hash tags that suit your business and participate in full on discussions or you can have one to one discussions with individuals. I use the hash tag #spbkchat and participate in the discussion on Thursday evenings. #spbkchat is translated as South Pacific Book Chat and is focussed on books at a time slot suitable for people living in the south pacific. We have people from New Zealand, Australia and Japan as well as the odd person from the northern hemisphere. There is a specific topic each week and so long as you include the hash tag then you’re included. It’s a great way to meet new people interested in the same topics.
What my plan of action (it’s not a new year’s resolution as I don’t do them) will contain is regular input to Twitter, Facebook and Good Reads. I’m going to timetable in Thursday nights in front of Twitter so I can participate in #spbkchat. My plan of action will include regular tweets about the book I’m currently reading, I don’t plan on giving spoilers, but just a little snippet. It will include comments about the programme I’m watching or the music I’m listening to as that gives people an idea about what I’m like. Posts to my Facebook Fan page will include some of the comments about the book I’m reading as well as books I’ve just acquired and also information and observations about the English Language. I’m going to continue to write my blog five days a week and plan to tweet about the blog three times a day. On the weekend I’ll tweet about an old article I’ve written, just bringing people into the archives so they can easily see I’ve been writing for a while and so they can see the quality of my work.
How will I do all this? I’ll have to throw my boomerang and actually get organised. A lot of it I’ll be able to schedule so that as soon as I’ve written my blog I’ll be able to write the tweets and hit the schedule button so they go out when I want and not when I’m thinking about it. One thing I’ve been watching friends do is to tweet about the books they’ve listed and I plan to have a go at this, I’d like to automate that as well if possible and that may be possible in the future due a total rewrite of my website…but that’s another article.
—
Suzie Eisfelder
Suz’s Space
Your online home for pre-loved books and part-work magazines
Website: www.suzs-space.com
Blog: www.suzs-space.com/blog
Twitter: twitter.com/SuzsSpace
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PrelovedBooksatSuzsSpace
It’s such a relief to hear of someone else struggling with the same issues that I am facing. There are no answers apart from creating that schedule and sticking to it. Thank you, Suzie for your thoughts and tips.
And after you get your online social/business life straightened out come on over and straighten out mine.
It is so easy to get sidetracked and sometimes hard to stay focused (That link looks interesting…) while doing a social media regimen but first you have to get one. Great bit of info and inspiration you have given us here. One of my LinkedIn connections told me a bit of how he does it and it does get him business in his field as a motivational speaker.
I would like to say too that using comments and tweets with links to your web-pages be sure to stay real. One can most often tell when someone is spamming a comment board as opposed to really making a statement. If you are trying to draw potential customers attention to a particular product with a comment or tweet go ahead and say so and don’t try to pretend you are not.