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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A Lesson For Schools – Social Media Is Like A Party

The video at the end of this article shows Internet marketing guru, Perry Belcher, explaining how he uses social media to attract new clients and make more money.

While the video is targeted at small business owners looking to use social media as a means of increasing sales, there is a lot in the video that schools can use as well.

The main point Perry is making in the video is that you need to treat social media as though it were a party. Each of the various social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc) are a different online party. And when you go to a party, you don’t want to show up and immediately start talking about yourself.

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How The Police Use MySpace To Investigate Crimes

This is just an intro to what will be a continuing discussion here on SocialMediaSchools.com, but the following video shows how what you post online could get your BUSTED! 

Going back to the misconceptions many people have about the Internet and social media, the following video shows how the people that use social networking websites (such as Facebook and MySpace) are not always just kids. 

In addition to parents, teachers, staff and school administrators using the Internet to puruse and interact with people online, the police are also using social media websites to scope out, investigate, and sometimes arrest people who are performing illegal activities. 

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What Is Social Networking?

In our last video post we answered the question, “What Is Social Media?” But today we’re going to discuss the term “Social Networking” and how it relates to you and your school. 

And once again, we’re going to use an easy-to-understand video made by the good folks at Common Craft to explain exactly what social networking is. So sit back and enjoy! 

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What Is Social Media?

You might be thinking to yourself, “What exactly is social media?”

Well, that’s a good question. And it would be crazy to run a website about integrating the Internet and social media technology into our education systems and not actually tackle this question. 

Lucky for is, there’s a company called Common Craft who has produced a short, educational video that answers this question for us. 

So rather than try and explain the ins and outs of a seemingly complicated subject matter, just sit back and watch this down-to-earth explaination of how social media works. 

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