Everywhere you go these days, people are talking about social media.
Should we set up a Facebook page? Should we Twitter? What about a blog? But what would I write about? And how much time is that going to take?
Stop and breathe. Take a deep breath again and listen to the air leaving your nostrils.
Listening to the web can help you answer these social media questions. And listening is probably the best way to formulate clear and achievable objectives for your online efforts.
So here’s my proposal. Spend the next 30-60-90 days (depending on how fast you want to move) just subscribing, searching, and reading. Just listening. Then let’s talk about where you want to go and how we’re going to get there.
Here’s several ways you can listen:
1. Sign up for Google Alerts and receive emails about the topics you are interested in. This can include alerts about your business, your area of expertise, your competitors, specific people or market niches, etc.
2. Create a Twitter account and start following people in your space. You can also search Twitter to discover people to follow. Most media outlets and many influential blogs are on Twitter and the resultant feed you create will be customized to your interests.
3. Find and read the blogs of key influencers in your space using blog searching tools like Technorati , Google Blog Search or Bloglines.
4. Add connections to your profile on LinkedIn and Facebook and pay attention to who is making status updates and how they are using it.
5. On LinkedIn, join some groups in your area of interest and start following the discussions. Also, check out the LinkedIn Answers section to see who are the subject matter experts in your space.
6. Search YouTube (and other popular content sites like Slideshare) for material in your area of expertise.
7. Search consumer review sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, UrbanSpoon, and Epinions for products or services in your space.
There are lots of other places to go and search. Once you start, you’ll find them. Let me know what you come up with.