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Establishing Your Presence In Social Media

Guest post by: Daniel Lacey

Article Overview: When you decide to start a home-based business on the internet and further decide that one of your main marketing tools will be by participating in the social media it becomes paramount that you establish yourself as an expert in your field. As you enter the world of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. and establish your own blog it becomes evident that building your reputation as an expert and one who is willing to give value is paramount. How to do that?

Establishing Your Presence In Social Media

When you decide to start a home-based business on the internet and further decide that one of your main marketing tools will be by participating in the social media it becomes paramount that you establish yourself as an expert in your field. As you enter the world of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. and establish your own blog it becomes evident that building your reputation as an expert and one who is willing to give value is paramount.

How to do that?

You can start by writing useful articles and getting them published as widely as possible over the web, the subject of which can assist others in their daily lives or in their own endeavors. The subject matter should be something that you are knowledgeable and passionate about.

For example, for my first article I sat down and wrote of my reasons for starting a business after retirement. I stated the rationale which was to possibly provide some extra funds to be able to travel more with my wife, some funds to assist my children with their student loan burdens and to possibly help our church with its growth plans. I discussed how I went about my due diligence and the key issues that swayed my final decision. All these things I was, and am, really passionate about. For this reason I really did not find it hard to express myself since I was in my own comfort zone. I believe I communicated that I was thoughtful, reasoned and an expert during the decision-making process. This expertise was gained during an extensive career as a General and Financial Executive.

One important realization that one has to arrive at fairly early in one's entry into this new world is that people who are active in the social media do not, repeat not, want to simply sit at their computers and read a bunch of quasi ads for internet business opportunities or political propaganda. What they are primarily looking for is useful information and relevant news presented in a readable format. Further, to brighten their day it does no harm to send out the occasional joke or quip.

Folks who are in business will post offers from time to time,myself included, but this cannot be the main emphasis of their social media participation. However, if anything is offered there should be something of real value to go along with it at no cost. To give an example, a particular company offers a free opportunity to review the quality of their training of provided to their members prior to them being enrolled. When you are contemplating investing in a business anything like this "free" offer that helps your due diligence is of tremendous value. This is what I referred to above as giving value and I recommend that you think of the content of your Tweets, your Facebook postings, etc., as an approximate ratio representing the giving of value 80% and any offers, etc., as 20% for offers, etc.

In summary, always take account of readers' time constraints and be conscious that the majority of the information flow that they experience these days is trying to sell them something. Above all, try your best to contribute something of value to your readers, they will love it.

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Article Tags: blog, facebook, giving attitude, homebased business, reputation



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Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
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