I’ve been talking in my last few posts about my approach to social media, as a marketing vehicle. I thought some folks out there might enjoy hearing about some of the decisions I’ve made and results I’ve gotten. This will be my last article on it for awhile, as we’re almost caught up to where I am now.
I began by researching like crazy, and choosing one social media platform and sticking to it. I set a no self-promotion policy, and then started a blog.
My thoughts about blogging completely changed when people started reading and retweeting my articles. It wasn’t long at all before people started linking my articles in their blogrolls. The response was very swift. That led me to want to do it more, and made me very much want to get a new blog up that would let people comment. I began working on that, but at the same time…
Decision 5. Participate.
I started participating on other sites. I would ask questions, or leave comments on others’ blog articles. It was fun, because as long as I stuck to what I knew, I started to feel like part of a community. That’s when the strangest thing happened.
Within one week of doing that, I got THREE requests for Skype calls. One person from Europe asked me to work on a project with her; another wanted me to coblog, and a third wanted to pick my brain about running a business.
During the same week, I got two LinkedIn referrals. “You need to meet and speak with Geoff”. Well I didn’t know how to respond. Up to this point I had the sense I was one guy working away in his home office creating content for…well I still wasn’t 100% sure. But now it appeared that there were direct and tangible benefits from doing this.
Every new person I meet in this context is a potential client, or knows someone who could be. Each time I get to demonstrate my expertise be it providing a spreadsheet or offering an opinion, I’m “showing off” what I know and can do…to someone who is listening.
I think that’s what I’ve taken away from this whole experience so far. People are listening, and valuing what I have to say. Having spent much of my life working for large organizations who greet my enthusiasm with a blase lassitude, I must say this is a thrilling, refreshing change.
I don’t know where this is going to lead, but I can definitely say I’m very excited. I’ve met so many wonderful people through this medium. Those who have given to me or changed my viewpoints in some way are listed on my blogrolls to the right. I’m looking forward to adding more.
Periodically, I’ll revisit this topic to let you know what further results my social media approach has brought me, and what steps I took to get there. For now, thanks for reading!
