Applies To: 2021-2022 – Discussion For: 2022-2023
Brief Overview:
Social media can mean many things right now. Let’s keep the focus to just the social media platforms that show up in the search engines, or permanently document on the internet in general.
A social media platform is essentially, an APP (Application) that you install. Thankfully, you can still visit their official web sites and use the ‘lite’ version of their applications. Web-based applications are less likely to intrude on your device-privacy, or overthrow settings. FYI.
Social Media can influence entire populations, therefore, it’s vital to secure, protect, monitor, while also allowing totally ‘free-speech’, which is next to an impossible task. As you know, saying the wrong thing can land someone in trouble – you definitely don’t want to document said thing permanently on the internet. How do you remove it? What happens when a reputation gets damaged? How do you control the flow of publication when most is automated, and cataloged and indexed? Tough questions.
Properly Using Social Media:
Likewise, considering only the benefits for using social media responsibly and ethically for business will naturally become part of the dialog in all areas of industries. Every industry, and most departments within the industry wants to be social. It’s a human thing! Whether members discuss data verbally, or utilize tech devices to get there quicker – people talk.
Since we cannot stop everyone from saying everything they aren’t supposed to say, there are FILTERS (digital, algorithms, AI, etc.) to ensure only the most relative (based on predictive models and analytics data) information reaches the public eyeballs.
For Businesses:
To maintain social media as a business stick to basics (totally serious). You can always adjust as you go along, but try to absolutely separate BUSINESS and PERSONAL life. You’ll be tempted to blend them…
- Business ‘posts’ on social media not to exceed 5x / day
- Use limited social media platforms – or you scatter fans
- Never trust social media. Trust only in your business ethics
- Say ethical, and honorable things. The best sale is an honest one
- Be a great business – The public deserves to know your business
- Don’t be yourself. Save that for personal life on social media
For Personal Use:
The best way to get popular, or have an online-life is to just join in with other conversations. We call it digital-mingle. You have to blend in with the crowd – instead of trying to stand out. Mental toughness, and personal confidence is necessary for hanging-out on social media. They are not nice places – but can be with some effort. Many will appreciate your patience, and honest efforts to…
- Be Yourself
- Limit the private / personal information you share online
- Phone Conversations are still a thing too.
- Don’t stay online 24/7
- Don’t be offended if you stay online 24/7
- Limit online time. Seriously, limit it. You get more done, promise
- Be Yourself
Search Engine Optimization Benefits:
It truly depends on which platform you use, so we can chat about those popular ones now.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn will index in the search engines fairly quickly if you’re a regular user of one or more. Google will cheerfully create you a Twitter Carousel and rank it very high, keeping your most recent tweets in prominent view.
The other networks will also take up some of the Top 1 – 10 spots effectively pushing out your competitors, or force them to pay for Ads (Yuck!) which most people ignore anyway – trust is still a major factor, along with Ad Blindness – which is funny how we naturally tune out crap that doesn’t apply to us at the moment. They are still things, regardless.
- Social Media + Keywords + Relative Content = Success
- Don’t just wing social media, get a little coaching / learning
- Use content that relates to your business, skip other things
- Social Media platforms typically outrank other services because of the sheer amount of traffic and popularity per day. Unreal.
Your site can outrank social media. You didn’t know that? Most businesses have a huge percentage of their time invested into social media (that’s what you get for listening to marketing advice from kids and news networks).
Social media used incorrectly can absolutely wreck public trust in a second.
Your official site can outrank all of it – because it’s your official business site, it gets listed on public government sites, and reputable sites that are trusted on the global level (backlinks / digital trust).
Being a business with an SSL Certificate – further adds to the Digital Trust, which is most likely a running score similar to personal credit, or business credit scoring. Who knows, but Trust is a very real commodity.
You can grab an SSL Certificate from your Web Hosting company. If they don’t offer that service, I would hop to a better Web Hosting company! You want one with an established relationship with a Certificate Authority.
Conclusion:
Social media can add value, or totally destroy your brand / reputation. Use it knowingly, carefully, and tactfully.
Social media can greatly benefit an existing business. Do not attempt to start a business on a social media platform – check your local laws and statutes for business permits, and departments of revenue for sales tax stuff. You can’t just launch any business and get rich, there is a process and it should be followed to maintain good business or personal reputation.
Personal sites may also be subject to applicable local / county / state / federal rules or fees or etc., if you make an income from them. We can discuss more about business structure in another article.
It’s totally okay, to start a social media account, and carefully look at ALL THE SETTINGS, and LEARN how each one behaves with your data. We will cover more about Privacy Settings in “Digital Exhaust” articles.