Resources

Manage Your Social Network Presence in 20 Minutes a Day

Ok, so you've decided to get started with Social Networks and want to use them to reach more customers and cultivate business relationships. You realize that social networks can be powerful tools in your store's communication and promotion arsenal.

Regardless of what services you'll use, it's important to consider how much time, energy and resources will you be able to devote to maintaining your online profiles. So how do you begin? It makes sense to create a strategy that covers how to proceed and measure the results from your efforts (number of contacts gained, new students signed up, etc.) Let's take a closer look at a few options.

1.    Maintaining an Individual Presence

Depending on your comfort level and available resources, you may want to begin with an individual profile to become familiar with the workings of the system before investing in it as an organization. The initial set-up process usually won't require anything more than filling out a few online forms and you'll be up in minutes. Next, you'll find that there are built-in tools to help you connect to friends and family members to build your contact base.

Remember to fill out your profile as completely as possible and include links to your store website. Be sure to upload the best photos available. When adding details or posts, always be careful about what information you want to share. You don't want anything to come back to haunt you!

After you get rolling, you'll probably find that you're spending more time than you originally thought maintaining your profile, adding posts, finding new friends, chatting and learning about new features. It's OK because you're laying the groundwork for moving on to developing your store presence.

2.    Developing Your Store Presence

Once you've become comfortable with your individual presence, you may want to add on your store. Keep in mind that this will add to your workflow since you'll be maintaining and cultivating "for two". Some services require that you establish an individual profile before you add on a business.

It's important to maintain the mindset that your store's presence should be viewed as an online  community. As with any community, you will need to get to know the people who join, keep discussions moving, answer questions, nurture participants and support your profile.

You'll certainly want to realize benefits from the time you'll invest to make social media work for you and your business. So, when writing posts and adding content, always remember who your core audience is and customize your posts accordingly. Although more professionals are utilizing Facebook for business relationships, it's still largely a place for personal or one-on-one contact. Other communities have their own unique personality, so write your posts in a style that appeals to each unique audience.

Thankfully, we work in the music business and our customers, colleagues, friends and family generally "get it" when it comes to who we are and how we may behave. We certainly have the freedom to express ourselves and probably do so in a manner that's a little more extrinsic. Always remember that your conduct will be scrutinized. Imagine that your interactions with others online are actually taking place in person and handle every interaction no differently than how you would treat a customer who is standing across the counter. In this online social setting, just about anyone will be able to read and monitor what you say and how you say it. Every action you take should be presented in a way that builds confidence and trust.

Now that you've created your profiles and have figured out the workings of these networks, how can you keep the time you spend under control? It's my belief that you can keep an active social media presence in 20 minutes a day, ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the afternoon.

It's easy to get distracted and spend more time than planned chatting with friends, posting news about events or products and learning new features. Rest assured that  you can stay active and reap the benefits of online networking and engagement with just 20 minutes a day. The trick is to use your time more efficiently and focus your activity in three areas: create, develop and engage.

Create

Constantly look for ways that you can add value to your social network presence. Perhaps you're uploading video lessons. This is a great way to build repeat traffic. By carefully planning the lesson content, you could effectively seed your lesson program for years to come with a continual stream of new students and supportive parents. Film the progress of a select few and use that content to inspire prospective students and parents. How about posting a detailed video diary of a complete guitar restoration? Create a video library of people you have interviewed within your online community and share their stories of how music has touched their lives.

The key to engaging people and bringing them back are those uncovered nuggets of information (many right under your nose) that your network participants will find interesting.

Develop

Reach out and connect to other web content you find useful and relevant and post these links. You already understand the importance of having great content on your website. It's no different for your social network presence. There's no shame in posting links or referring your followers to other valuable resources. Always remember your web etiquette and attribute the content back to the originator, either through a link or by including the source.

Engage

Scan through posts from others in your network and respond where appropriate. Remember that people are busy, so if it takes a while for them to respond, don't sweat it. Your mission is to present yourself as someone who is helpful and wants to be "part of the solution".

Focus on these three areas and remain diligent about how much time you'll spend each day. In just a few weeks, you'll find that this routine will get easier and you'll accomplish your goal of 20 minutes a day.