How To Use Social Media

Posted by John Paul Aguiar in Blogging
ReLearning How To Use Social Media
I’m writing this because I think many bloggers have lost focus of why they are REALLY on Social Media and how to really use it to grow their blogs.
I see so many bloggers being busy bees on Social Media yet their blogs get no traffic or attention.  They put in all this time and effort and see no return on that investment.
It is very easy to get caught up and lost in “working” Social Media, that you lose focus on WHY you went there in the first place.
I know, I been there, at one time I to was a lost little blogger. I was so young, so naive.
 
Once I got into Twitter and then Facebook I got so caught up in it all, I felt like “hey, I’m here and I’m busy so I must be doing something right.”
The truth was the complete opposite, mostly.
Each day I was “busier” on SM, feeling like I was being productive, but the reality was, I was just taking time away from my own blog.
What I see happening now more and more is bloggers getting on SM with a laser focus on building relationships.
Now as important as it is to build relationships, it is also important for you to focus on the things YOU can do, like getting traffic to your blog.
Be Honest, Do You Remember How To Use Social Media for Marketing?
It’s easy to get on Social Media and share great stuff and talk to people everyday and build those relationships, but most of those relationships won’t pay off right away. So you need to also focus on using Social Media as a marketing tool, think traffic to my blog.
To have REAL success with Twitter and all other Social Media platforms, your mind has to be equally focused on constantly driving traffic to your blog just as much as it is on building relationships.
 
Think One Way Connections To Your Blog
Your blog should be the “Be All End All” send all traffic there with one way connections.
You want people to get to your blog with one click, that click can be from an image or a blog post or a video etc…
Here is what I mean by One Way Connections:
Send people on Twitter to you blog with one click.
Send people from Facebook to your blog with one click.
Send people from Google+ to your blog with one click.
What you don’t want to be doing is sending people from one SM site to another.
Getting people to click on your stuff is hard enough, why make it harder by hoping they will click once to get from one SM site to another and THEN hope they click again to finally get to your blog.
Just like all other conversions online, you want people to travel from A to B in the fastest and easiest way possible.
Twitter to your blog
Google+ to your blog
and so on…
Keeping them ONE click away from your blog will give you a HUGE boost to the traffic you get to your blog on a daily basis.
 
Are You Satisfied With Your Time On SM?
Again be honest, when was the last time you ended your day and said…
“Wow, I was busy and drove a ton of traffic and attention to my blog today”
Chances are you haven’t said that a lot.
You may feel like you were busy or you connected with some good people, but I really doubt you have walked away feeling your blog is better today for all the time you spent on Social Media.
I think most bloggers get on Social Media with the right plan or focus and slowly lose that focus because they get busy being busy.
You get busy looking for content to share.
You get busy looking for the “right” people to connect with.
You get busy share and commenting.
You get busy looking at pretty pictures.
You get busy chatting and commenting.
You get so busy on Social Media that you slowly spend less time on your blog, you slowly spend less time promoting your blog in other places.
Sound familiar?
 
Social Media Is Marketing So Deal With It
No one is using Social Media JUST to make friends. So when the gurus tell you it’s all about a big love fest and let’s all be friends and connect and blah blah.. it’s all BS.
Social Media is marketing, yes some do it well where you don’t feel the marketing and others the marketing slaps you upside the head.
But at the end of the day we are all here to sell or promote something.
The sooner you understand that the sooner you will start to grow your blog by using Social Media.
You need to shift your mind a little from JUST building friendships to also think about how SM can benefit your blog today and help you grow your  traffic. opt ins and customers.
Think of it like this.
You have a really nice Portuguese restaurant with the most polite and social host greeting customers at the door.
The host begins to have a really nice, friendly conversation with say customer then turns around and sends them on their way.
He has been polite, he has built a small relationship with said customer, but he NEVER got them in the door to BUY anything.
You are doing the same thing if you treat Social Media as a place to JUST meet and chat and connect with people.
At some point you have to let them in the door and make some money.
This is why you are here right? This is why you started a blog in the first place right?
 
ReLearn How To Use Social Media
Listen I don’t want you to think building relationships is a bad thing, trust me it it not. It’s one of the best things you can do to see real success on any Social Media platform.
I know, the relationships I have built over the past 5 years are a big reason for the success I see, without those friendships, I would be nowhere.
But building relationships takes time, those relationships don’t usually pay off right away.
So you need to have a focus on the other side of SM and that is the marketing.
You need a plan in place so you know why you’re on Social Media and how you will use it.
    1. Build relationships.. but at some point you need to make those relationships pay off.
   2. Grow your blog and business… get more traffic, more email opt ins and more customers.
   3. Share your stuff, you need to remember to share your stuff ALMOST as much as you share other peoples stuff, say a 70 – 30 ratio.
   4. Get To Work then get out… know the best times for YOU to be on SM and get in and do the work and get out when you’re done.
At the end of each day, you need to walk away from Social Media knowing that all the time and effort and attention you give it, that SM is giving back to you equally.
Just like any other type of marketing, at some point and on some level there has to be some kind of real world payoff to your bottom line.
I hope this post has helped you look at yourself and how your using Social Media and maybe help you make some changes that will help you build a better blogging business.
As always, I’d love to hear your thought in the comments below.
Together We Succeed :)
http://inspiretothrive.com/ Lisa Sicard
John, great post. I have been trying to make that shift and its not easy. I’ve always been afraid to share my own stuff and go by the 80/20 rule, sharing others at least 80% of the time and my stuff not quite near the 20%. It is something I’ll be working on ore as I recover use of my arm.
I think Facebook is the harder one for me but I use a Page to promote the blog, etc and not my personal profile.
Thanks for great tips and reminders John.
http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/ John Paul
Shaing other people stuff is great and a great way to build relationships Lisa, but at some point you HAVE to share your stuff since you are here to build your OWN blog.
80/20 70/30 is a good ratio, I would go any lower or higher than that.
http://inspiretothrive.com/ Lisa Sicard
Thanks John, I will be trying to get that up. I like your new design here!
http://www.adriennesmith.net/ Adrienne
Hey John Paul,
Amen to this my friend, amen to this.
It is difficult to get people over to your blog but just like building relationships, it takes time. I agree with you and I have upped sharing my content a little more. I kept hearing about how you needed to share it more at first and then continue throughout the week. I’ve been doing that more and more and it seems to be working but it can always be better.
I appreciate you bringing this up because I’m so tired of people telling me well so and so is having all these conversations on social media so I should be doing that too. Yeah, you should and that’s a start but your main goal should always be to get them back to your blog. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re building relationships and that’s how you support yourself.
Love this one and will share it again just because it’s a darn important topic.
Have a great day John Paul.
~Adrienne
Sherman Smith
Hey John,
I have to agree with you John. Even though now I’m a big advocate in building relationships I also a big advocate of marketing and creating an income from my blog too.
Before I was all for building relationships, then I was about marketing, now I’m about build healthy supportive relationships where everyone wins. I also plan on getting back into paid marketing. I feel like now everything is balancing out and will work out for the best.
Great post John! Have a great weekend!
http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/ John Paul
Sherman, you need to do both, relationships have real power in helping you reach your goals, but you can do a lot on your own, today and see results. Do that AS you build relationships and you will see success today and into the future. Enjoy your weekend too
http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/ John Paul
Adrienne, the ones having ALL that conversation are also the ones that get NO traffic to their blog. We all have different goals, now if your goal is to be popular on SM then cool, be there all day chatting it up.
BUT if you goal is to build a blogging business, then you NEED to find a happy middle to chatting and building relationships AND driving traffic to your blog all day everyday.
Learn to do that and you will see success very quickly.
Glad you enjoyed this one
http://www.reachoutsid.com/ Siddaiah
Hi John,
You cleared my doubts about the social media importance for making relationships by shows the example of restaurant host who greets and shows the way to sit without talking any noise things.
I liked that example, I will start implementing these tips on my social media platforms to build relationships, thanks for sharing an informative post, see you soon with another article.
http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/ John Paul
Siddaiah, good to see you. Glad the post was helpful and will have you trying new things.
Stop by anytime