1. You’re an authority on a topic their interested in.
2. You’re an interesting conversationalist.
3. You’re funny.

While it would be nice to be all three, it just isn’t likely. When it comes to Social Media the only one on the list above that matters is number 1! You must be an authority on the topic or topics you make your living at. Even then getting people to follow you on a consistent basis can be a difficult task. Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll have more followers (and more customer) than you’ll know what to do with.

Be Clear and Concise

You may be an authority on your topic but if you’re not clear and tend to ramble, you’ll lose your audience fast. Before publishing, ask a friend or relative to read your content and then have them relay your main ideas back to you as they understand it. You may be surprised at what you here.

Know Your Facts

You may be an authority but even the pro can get it wrong. So be sure to check your facts.  Nothing will lose your followers faster than when they find out your wrong! They will then post that fact in as many places as possible to make them look smarter to those around them.

Be Objective

Keep emotion out of it. Emotion can tend to cloud your judgment and in will come through in your writing. If your followers feel you can’t be objective they’ll stop listening.

Above all, Provide VALUE!

You can be all of the things above, but without adding value in some form, it’s all for nothing. Weather it be information value, discount value or entertainment value doesn’t matter. Without VALUE nobody will stick around

Remember these few simple to follow tips on posting to your social media accounts and your followers will be around for a long time.

To your social media success!

Steve & Beneta Nelson

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The last time I checked, the more clients a business had, the more money they made. And money (correct me if I’m wrong) is a good thing. We all need it in order to keep doing our jobs… and we all need it in order to survive.

So, if you understand that more money can come as the result of having more clients in your business, the question then becomes, “How do you attract more clients?”

Based on my experiences, the best way to do this is through the creation of social proof.

Social proof is something one creates in order to prove to others that what he or she says or does is worth paying attention to. In short, it’s a way of building yourself up so that you can sway the actions of a large group of people.

The principle behind social proof is that since most people make the assumption that the people surrounding them possess more knowledge about a particular situation than they do, they will deem the behavior of others as more appropriate or better informed… and therefore, follow in the footsteps of those around them.

Social proof gets people talking about brands. Social proof convinces people to buy a particular product. And social proof sways clients to buy from one business and not another.

The more social proof your business has, the greater your chances of attracting new clients.

In order to attract more clients and make more money, however, you need to create an ever-increasing amount of social proof around your business.

Need more money? Get more clients.

Need more clients? Create social proof.

If you can create enough social proof, you’ll have clients begging to buy from your business. With enough social proof you’ll have clients clamoring to your business.

Social proof is powerful.

If you understand this, you’re on the right track! But the question then becomes, “How do you create social proof within your community?”

One way to do it is through the use of SOCIAL MEDIA.

What you may not realize about social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is that not only are these tools an excellent way of communicating with the citizens in your community… but sites such as these are also one of the best (and fastest) ways of building social proof.

To build social proof with social media, you need to do three things.

1) Increase your follower counts. The more people you have following you on Twitter, subscribing to your RSS feeds, or becoming a fan of yours on Facebook, the more important your business will seem.

2) Get your business’s message to spread online. The more your business’s content is Re-Tweeted, emailed back and forth, voted on, Digged, or StumbledUpon, the more “popular” your organization becomes.

3) Have people talking about your business in the real world. When the story you spread about your business is so great that it has people talking about your institution outside of the World Wide Web, then you know you’ve succeeded in generating positive social proof.

The formula looks like this:

• Need more money? Get more clients.
• Need more clients? Create social proof.
• Need social proof? Harness the power of social media.

Social proof is created by continually proving that your business is an amazing place; that you’re constantly pushing the boundaries; and that your business is doing something special – something others will want to be a part of.

If you are not yet using social media in your business as a tool for communication, marketing, promotion, and social proof creation, now is the time to begin!

Social proof doesn’t just pop up over night. It takes time to build and grow. The longer you wait to get started, the longer it’s going to take before your community starts talking about you and your incredible institution.

What are you waiting for? There couldn’t be a better time to harness the power of social proof through the use of social media! Join the Social Media Schools Master Course Today! Start creating your Socia Proof before your competition does!

Photo by Malkav

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I notice that some schools have Facebook pages that do not allow for wall posts while others do. I wonder what your perspective is on schools allowing for wall posts versus not.

Any tips you can share, I’d really appreciate it!!

Kristin Harrison

My response here is relatively simple: The ultimate goal for your school should be to open up the permissions as much as possible, so that eventually you are allowing your Fans to post new content, comment, and leave feedback on your school’s Facebook Fan Page.

In case you are unfamiliar with Facebook Fan Page permissions, check out the graphic below.

To find these settings on your school’s Facebook Fan Page, simply log into Facebook, navigate to your Page, and then click the “Edit Page” link found directly underneath your school’s logo/picture. From there, you will see an area called “Wall Settings.” Click the “Edit” link under that section and then you will see the “Wall Setting” options shown above.

As you can see, you have the choice of allowing “Posts by Page and Fans” or of allowing “Only Posts by Page.” (For those who don’t know, YOU are the Page. So, if you choose to allow posts only by the Page, that means that only you (and other Page administrators) will be allowed to post new content to your school’s Facebook Fan Page).

Under the sub-heading titled “Fan Permissions” you will also note that you can give your Fans permission to write or post on your Page, as well as permission to post photos, videos or outside links. Leaving these boxes checked gives your Fans permission to post just about anything they want. Unchecking one or more of these boxes removes your Fans from being allowed to post that particular kind of content.

The problem many schools have when it comes to these settings is that they are simply nervous (or even afraid) about what kind of content/remarks their Fans will leave if they give them permission to post whatever they want. For many schools, this is a justified concern.

That said, if you work in a school that is currently having problems of some kind that could result in outrageous negative feedback from the community, then I think it is perfectly fine to block off access to your Fans and only allow new content to be posted by you and other Fan Page administrators. However, this should not be something that you do forever. The ultimate goal should be to start with your Page permissions blocked off, but then to eventually lift those permissions so that slowly, over time, you give your Fans more and more rights on your Page.

When you block your Fans from posting on your Page, you are essentially blocking them from giving you any kind of feedback. Essentially, you have turned your Facebook Fan Page into a one-way communication channel, with you pumping out the information and your Fans taking it in – unable to respond, even if they wanted to. This, as far as I am concerned, is not social media… and using your Facebook Fan Page in this way may work for a while, but it is far from effective.

You see, the great part about allowing your Fans to leave comments and contribute to your school’s Fan Page is that:

First of all, you get feedback on what the parents, teachers, students, staff, and community members liked or did not like about certain events or activities in your school/district. This can be a bit scary at times, but it is the best way to learn and grow from an administration standpoint. Every time you do something new or exciting in your school you can make a post about it on Facebook and almost instantly get feedback as to what your community liked, disliked, or would like you to do next time you conduct a similar event. From a marketing and education standpoint, this is vital information for any school to have.

Secondly, opening up the permissions on your Facebook Fan Page actually causes you to do less work, because your Fans will be helping you to build the content of your Facebook Page for you. I know that from my talks with several schools around the world, time is an important factor in their resistance to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. They think that social media use in their school will take too much time – something that they feel they just don’t have very much to give away. But the truth is, posting new content to Facebook and Twitter takes just minutes per day, and when you allow your parents, teachers and students to directly add new content to your school’s Page, it creates even less work that you have to do yourself. After a while, your Page may become almost self-sufficient, with the community around your school doing 90% of the work and you chiming in just once a day to moderate comments and make new and important updates.

Finally, the biggest advantage to allowing your Fans to contribute to your Page is that each time someone comments on your Page, a notice is then automatically posted on that person’s individual Profile, notifying his or her friends that they just made a comment on your school’s Facebook Fan Page. This is huge because this is how you get more and more people to know about your school. When someone leaves a comment on your school’s Page, his or her friends are notified about it, and many of them will be inclined to navigate back to your school’s pPage, become a fan, or contribute to the Page themselves. As a marketing tool, this is incredibly powerful and something that should be encouraged if possible – not something that should be restricted.

So you see, it is okay to block off your Fans from posting comments and new content to your school’s Facebook Fan Page, but the ultimate goal should be to open up those permissions as much as possible so as to get immediate feedback, automatically grow your Page, and increase your school’s awareness amongst your community’s Facebook users. When you can… and when you feel comfortable doing it, I encourage you to open up those permissions as much as possible.

Stop viewing your Facebook Fan Page as a one-way communication channel between your school and the neighboring community… and start seeing it as an opportunity to create an army of raving Fans!

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