"how do you ever get any work done?" If you follow me on LinkedIn (Colin Clerkin, drop me a contact invite if you don't yet!), on Twitter (@MIrrorCoach), or on FaceBook (Mirror Coaching page) you will probably have had just that thought - a thought, incidentally, often voiced aloud to me when I meet with my online contacts to discuss their business development.
The thing is ... I find plenty of time to work ... I've got a pretty busy practice and an ever-growing list of other commitments as I work to grow my own practice even more. But I am, as you'll have realised, also committed to establishing a good online presence through social media as I believe this has an important part to play in my business marketing strategy. But, more importantly, I am also committed to making that social media engagement one that goes some way towards meeting my readers' needs and offering them even more than I can offer on my own - that's part of the "added value" proposition I go on about when I coach clients about how to stand out from the crowd ... give 'em more than they ask for!
I hope I succeed in this goal through the wide-ranging articles on business development, self-care, goal-setting, marketing, etc., that I post links to on my LinkedIn status updates and my Twitter feed. You tell me: do you find them useful? I know I do!
But, contrary to how it must look from the outside, I am not spending all day, every day in the social media whirl ... and you don't have to either, even as you strive to expand your profile, demonstrate your expertise more widely and (hopefully) attract clients. I actually only spend a couple of hours a week (sometimes less) researching articles and making my posts ... but I do this using two excellent free online tools that, if you want to develop your online presence, you may want to explore.
I hope I succeed in this goal through the wide-ranging articles on business development, self-care, goal-setting, marketing, etc., that I post links to on my LinkedIn status updates and my Twitter feed. You tell me: do you find them useful? I know I do!
But, contrary to how it must look from the outside, I am not spending all day, every day in the social media whirl ... and you don't have to either, even as you strive to expand your profile, demonstrate your expertise more widely and (hopefully) attract clients. I actually only spend a couple of hours a week (sometimes less) researching articles and making my posts ... but I do this using two excellent free online tools that, if you want to develop your online presence, you may want to explore.
RSS Feed
My trawling of the internet to find articles of interest has been massively simplified by use of an RSS Feed service ... in this case, I use Google Reader. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or more commonly, Really Simple Syndication. This allows me to 'subscribe' to sites whose content I find interesting, so that when a new post is made to that site, a link to this post is registered with my RSS Reader, in this case, Google Reader. When I then go to my Google Reader page, I see the headlines from hundreds of articles retrieved by the RSS feed. I can then, quite quickly, spot headlines that interest me so I can review the article and decide if I think it is something that my readers might also find useful or interesting.
Screen grab from my Buffer page
And this is where it gets fun ... because of course, I could easily find that I'm visiting my Google Reader page every day and selecting posts to try to keep my social media presence high. But that would be a huge time commitment and, like most busy clinicians and coaches, I don't have that time to spare! This is where the other wonderful - and FREE - online tool comes into its own. Let me introduce you to Bufferapp, if you've not yet had the pleasure.
Bufferapp (www.bufferapp.com) is a service for which you can register online, for free! It provides an extremely neat solution to the problem of how to keep your social media presence consistently visible.
You can schedule up to 10 posts at a time (more, if you use the paid-for "Awesome" feature) to your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts, to be delivered on a schedule that you determine across whatever time-frame suits your needs.
So, for example, I have my account set up to post my content three times a day to my Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn feeds, Monday to Friday, with the times these get sent out staggered (based, again, on my timing choices) across the day and across each account. Each item I choose to post is automatically sent out by Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and to ensure they are not too close together in time, I use the simple 'shuffle' facility to mix them up and keep my postings varied.
Bufferapp (www.bufferapp.com) is a service for which you can register online, for free! It provides an extremely neat solution to the problem of how to keep your social media presence consistently visible.
You can schedule up to 10 posts at a time (more, if you use the paid-for "Awesome" feature) to your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts, to be delivered on a schedule that you determine across whatever time-frame suits your needs.
So, for example, I have my account set up to post my content three times a day to my Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn feeds, Monday to Friday, with the times these get sent out staggered (based, again, on my timing choices) across the day and across each account. Each item I choose to post is automatically sent out by Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and to ensure they are not too close together in time, I use the simple 'shuffle' facility to mix them up and keep my postings varied.
The basic Bufferapp account is free and allows up to 10 postings to be "buffered" at a time - they even provide a button that you can add to your menu bar so that if you visit a page that you want to share, you simply click that button and the page is stored on your buffer for later sharing.
All I need to do is visit my Bufferapp page twice a week, update it with content culled from my Google Reader, or with items about my own services that I want to promote, and in less than a couple of hours a week, I have created a consistent and varied social media presence that keeps my profile high with my readers. When those readers then choose to share or Re-Tweet my postings, my reach is expanded even further and my name recognition as someone who has a degree of expertise in this area of marketing and coaching is enhanced, drawing new followers and, ultimately, new enquiries and, yes, clients!
If you're looking to increase your own use of social media, I can't recommend Bufferapp enough (by the way, no money has changed hands in return for this endorsement :D) ... there will be other similar services out there, but to date, my experience with Bufferapp has been second-to-none and I know you'll agree if you choose to try it out. Go on ... why not get buffering today ...
Cheers for now
Author: Colin Clerkin
For more ideas about how to grow your business, check out my Business Breakthrough Programme and learn how Mirror Coaching can help systematise your marketing to maximise your referrals.
All I need to do is visit my Bufferapp page twice a week, update it with content culled from my Google Reader, or with items about my own services that I want to promote, and in less than a couple of hours a week, I have created a consistent and varied social media presence that keeps my profile high with my readers. When those readers then choose to share or Re-Tweet my postings, my reach is expanded even further and my name recognition as someone who has a degree of expertise in this area of marketing and coaching is enhanced, drawing new followers and, ultimately, new enquiries and, yes, clients!
If you're looking to increase your own use of social media, I can't recommend Bufferapp enough (by the way, no money has changed hands in return for this endorsement :D) ... there will be other similar services out there, but to date, my experience with Bufferapp has been second-to-none and I know you'll agree if you choose to try it out. Go on ... why not get buffering today ...
Cheers for now
Author: Colin Clerkin
For more ideas about how to grow your business, check out my Business Breakthrough Programme and learn how Mirror Coaching can help systematise your marketing to maximise your referrals.
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