Why Do People Listen to You?

Good Question! What most people fail to realize is that the public will only listen for three reasons:

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

How Small Business Can Use Social Media to Attract New Clients

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.

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Do You Care About What Your Kids Are Eating?

I spend most of the time on this site talking about education and technology, but today I want to talk about food!

When was the last time you really thought about the food system in your school? When was the last time you seriously thought about the food that your students are eating?

Well, there is a new show on TV right now called “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” and I want to take this time right now and encourage you to WATCH THIS SHOW!

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Should Your School Allow Facebook Wall Posts From Fans

When you sign up for a Fan Page with Facebook.com, you have a number of options in regards to who can and can not contribute to your Page. Many schools have trouble determining what settings should be used here and whether or not they want to allows their Fans to directly contribute to their school’s Facebook Page. Based on the email below, this is obviously an issue some schools are dealing with.

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.

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What Teachers Make

Why Spelling And Grammar Don’t Matter

Every once and a while I will get an email from someone telling me that I spelled a word incorrectly or that I failed to punctuated a sentence properly. Sometimes my grammar is just way off – I’ll admit it.

Of course, I understand that coming from an educational background, we should do our best to emphasize correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. But the truth is, these things simply don’t matter as much when it comes to social media use.

When you are using Twitter (for example) and you only have 140 characters to spit out a message, you sometimes have to use abbreviations and tricky word cheats in order to get your message across. In the world of social networking, this is perfectly fine! And yet, some people still get caught up on these tiny mistakes.

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