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Networking with Social Media

Have a plan and work it.

By Dr. Ivan Misner

From a business perspective, social media is ideal to build your brand and your credibility; it’s about providing value for your connections and followers. It is important to offer them useful information balanced with a dash of personal insight. Whether you’re talking about face-to-face networking or online networking, credibility and relationship building are critical to the process.

With social media, the key to success is outlining a strategy. You should consider the amount of time you can realistically dedicate each day to online marketing efforts so as to be consistent. People have a tendency to get online at random times and start clicking away. Then something mysterious happens to the space-time continuum. Suddenly, two hours go by and you have nothing to show for it!

Avoid falling victim to that trap: Write up a plan for how often and how long you will work your social media.

Map out a weekly schedule that outlines specific days and times you’ll spend developing your social media strategy. Figure out what’s realistic and what makes sense for your company. For example, you might schedule yourself to post daily updates at 9a.m., 1p.m, and 5p.m., and then dedicate ten minutes to responding to comments and direct messages at 10 a.m. and 3p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you might dedicate ten minutes at 10a.m. and 3p.m. to retweeting people’s comments which you find valuable. You can also use this time to thank people for mentioning you or retweeting your posts.

Leverage Your Time

As you design your plan, make sure you integrate tools to leverage your time in your social media efforts. Sites like http://ping.fm, www.seesmic.com, and www.tweetdeck.com are designed to send your social media updates to multiple social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook, with one click.

Some sites even allow you to link multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts (if you have more than one) to one desktop application where you can post updates to all sites as well as view and respond to your friends’ posts on those sites and keep a log of all your past posts. This means no more logging into multiple social networking sites . . . you can manage all your social networking accounts from one place!

Also, there are sites such as www.cotweet.com where you can schedule updates in advance so your updates will post even while you’re not online. With all the traveling I do, this is a tool that is very useful.

ROI of Social Media Networking

Once you have your strategy in place, you will no doubt be anxious to start seeing a return on your online networking investment, but it’s very important to remember one thing: Networking, whether online or face-to-face, is more about farming than it is about hunting. It’s about cultivating relationships with people. The bottom line is – it takes time. It is about building the credibility of your brand, and we know that doesn’t happen overnight.

Return on Investment (ROI) is directly correlated to either – 1. Dollars spent (online paid marketing), or 2. Time and/or effort spent – in saturating and building strong profiles on whatever social media channels are deemed effective for the brand (including blogging). Don’t forget that some businesses will benefit much more from spending more effort on “niche” networks that may have less traffic, but are more targeted to the brand’s ultimate consumer.

If your network is a mile wide and an inch deep it will not be successful. It is important to create a network that is both wide and deep. You do this by being visible and engaging in the conversation. Over time, this gives you credibility which leads to building your brand and your sales. This, ultimately, will give you the biggest ROI for your online marketing efforts.

Top 5 Common Mistakes of Social Media Networking

Most of what I’ve discussed so far has focused on what you should do in order to carry out an effective and profitable social media campaign for your business. But there are also some things you should be sure to avoid.

Below are the top five common social media networking mistakes:

Spending too much time on sites you enjoy and not fully evaluating whether or not that particular site is the most effective one for your efforts.

Going onto a site for “work” and then running down rabbit holes getting distracted by friends who may have posted something interesting or something that requires a response.

Not being able to properly define when it is more cost-effective to delegate certain social media responsibilities to someone else to handle.

Setting up a blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter page and then not keeping it populated –consistency and fresh content are key.

Forgetting that social media is about engaging in the conversation and not just about selling.

Called the father of modern networking by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the founder and chairman of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. His latest book, Networking Like a Pro can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company. ou may read more of his material on his blog at www.NetworkingNowBlog.com.

Tags: Ivan Misner, July 2010 Edition, networking, return on investment, social media, social media strategy

27 Responses to “Networking with Social Media”

Tony Bucci Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Ivan,
I agree with your thoughts. Being a BNI member and using social media and internet marketing has dramatically increased our business. We have intergrated our BNI relationships with our online marketing efforts. We promote our chapter members and help them build there business.I am happy to share my experence with anyone who is interested.
Harald Lais Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:07 am
What a great content! Outstanding! Very useful ! We’ll translate in German. Thank you, Dr. Misner
Paul Bilotti Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Excellent article and tips! It’s so easy to lose track of time on the social media websites. My plan has been to avoid them to stay on track with my highest & best use of my time, however the idea of cotweet may be the solution until I can bring on someone I trust to delegate this task to.

Thanks for the tips!

Paul
Gina Boles Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Hi Ivan, I’m definitely guilty of running down the rabbit holes and getting distracted. Love the planned timetable idea you propose! I’m still finding my ‘voice’ on Twitter – just enjoying the chat really, and hoping my brand name gets recognised. For Facebook I haven’t even begun to explore it properly – soon to be remedied. I have been hearing rave reviews about your visit to Dublin by the way!
Gina
Ken Stuczynski Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Good article … I will share it using social media!

It’s often an uphill battle to help my clients get this right — even if they see the necessity for it, they don’t devote the time (read: consistent commitment) and may be unwilling to hire it out, even once someone like me sets them up for maximum potential benefit. A game-plan doesn’t bring success — having one and FOLLOWING it does.
Edward Swaby Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:05 am
something to consider. can i afford professional help? should i try to do it alone?
Ed
Curt Siters Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 11:58 am
My girlfriend and I have a new set of sites for her associates and is 95% marketed through social media – primarily Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In and is growing quite well.

The points you make are excellent and is what we are doing to promote it the site and her associates.
Bill Schubert Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I’ve found Posterous really useful. I can send an email from any computer that updates Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, and the Posterous site itself.
I find myself much more inclined to throw out a useful computer tidbit if I can just put it in an email and send.
Glen Murray Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
So true on the 5 tips. I use the expression “ooh Shiny” when I know I have been distracted from the task at hand.

thanks for the great tips and always insightful info.

Glen
Darren Cohen Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Hi Tony

I am new to online networking and am interested in any tips you may be able to give me. I am not sure how twitter would work for a mortgage broker.

Thanks

DARREN COHEN
Joe Bencharsky Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
thanks for the validation! As an internet marketing consultant I have been talking about ROI from social networking and web presence in my infomercials for 2 years. Right on the money!
Abe Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Hi Dr. Misner:

Thanks for the great article on social media.

Would you be interested in being a guest speaker on our 100,000 watt radio station on a weekly Saturday Morning program called ‘Open for Business’ in the future? You can hear it at http://www.wmuu.com each Saturday from 9AM to 10AM Eastern.

All the best,

Abe Silos
Sales Manager WMUU
Assistant Director
BNI Upstate South Carolina
Bob Cohen Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
If you’re using Social Media for business, you are 100% correct. A plan and time commitment is necessary. I teach about 70 classes a year on computers and Internet technologies and I spend about 50% of my blogging class discussing content creation.

Conversations are nice, but if your on-line goal is to network and develop business, your content needs to have value. While many students are surprised at first, I advise them to give away the best stuff – this builds a following and establishes trust and credibility.
Simon Bunker Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I was hoping for something a little different with this article, yet it seems to be just the same mantra being regurgitated. The whole “plan your social media strategy” just annoys me. As you rightly pointed out “Social media” is all about the conversation – do you pre plan every conversation that you have? For sure use of social media needs a small degree of planning but not convinced by having a detailed strategy especially down to exact timings on sending updates etc. The whole point of say, twitter is that it can be very spur of the moment. You soon get to see who is sending scheduled tweets and it’s a real turn off as it just looks false and it shows that really they are not keen to engage in a conversation.
It might also be worth mentioning Hootsuite as a useful tool for managing social networks
Ivan Misner Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
In Response to Simon Bunker:

Simon, thanks for your comments. It is important to remember that people are at a different place with their social media expertise. Some understand it very well and have a comprehensive strategy. Some are new and know virtually nothing. This piece was meant for people who have a fundamental understanding BUT, who have not really given much thought to a strategy.

I believe the suggestions are sound. I also believe in having a plan. This doesn’t mean (and I do not suggest) that you don’t do things on the spur of the moment (this response is an example of that). What I am stating is that it is way too easy to spend far too much time on social media. Working from a plan definitely helps some people (myself included) to organize my efforts more effectively.

Regarding Hootsuite – good suggestion. We have started using it here at BNI and I also recommend that site.

All the best.

Ivan
Ivan Misner Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Message to Abe Silos:

Abe, I’d be glad to participate on your show. I am out of the country for most of July. I’ll be available towards the end of July, early August, or in September. Let me know via email.

Thanks.

Ivan
Ben H. Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Social Networking is an essential marketing tool. Check out my website, http://sugar-rock.com, we work alot with social networking to promote our clients.
Donna Stone Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Ivan, good enough article, but I’ve got to agree with Simon Bunker to a degree. I’m a bookkeeping consultant, so a details person. I want specifics! Your article is more generalised, and really about time management and planning – what about specifics on HOW to make LinkedIn or Facebook work? I’m in no way new to business, but definitely new to social media and really it seems to be you just figure it out yourself. A article on each separate media with details and examples would be great – eg, how to you build up numbers on LinkedIn and then what do you do with them. Specifics! Write some articles like that and it will be well worth the time to read. Up to the challenge?
Andrew Billington Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Excellent information and tips! It’s so easy to lose track of time on the social media websites. My plan has been to avoid them to stay on track focusing on what is important. However the idea of cotweet is great; I personally use Hoot Suit it keeps life simple. Is one better than the other!

Thanks for the tips!
Jonathan Blecher Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
My chapter’s SEO and web designer has integrated my social media into my websites, which sit on page 1 of Google searches for Miami DUI Lawyer. We now have a social media category in our chapter to help our members take advantage of this invaluable marketing tool.
Simon Bunker Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 3:39 am
In response to Dr Misner:

Thanks Dr Misner for responding to my comments. It was a little disappointing that my comments were initially not published and it took a tweet to get some connection with Erin Millinger to get this resolved. Anyway, for sure I agree that you have to pitch the article at a certain level although that was not immediately obvious to me in the first instance. My main point was, that a detailed strategy is not suited to everyone. It will work for some and not for others so maybe presenting some alternative views on this would be of use. Personally I like the more ad hoc approach and it seems to work very well for me. Granted it will not be for everyone but its an alternative!
Maybe I could write a guest article for you on the subject and maybe offer my view and share how I approach Social Media with your readers?
Thanks again for your considered response.
Ivan Misner Says:
July 8th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Simon, the comments go through filters and moderation. Bunny, our SuccessNet editor handles this. Erin has no control over the newsletter comments. It was truly just chance that you tweeted it at the same time that it went up. Bunny told me of the comment and that brought me to the reply that went up soon after your post was approved through the filter.

You are absolutely welcome to submit a guest article. There is an ‘article submission’ item on the newsletter. Remind Bunny about this dialog.

I have also invited a BNI Director with expertise in this area to share his knowledge in one of the next editions.

Many thanks.

Ivan
Rick Itzkowich -TheLinkedInGuy Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Ivan, your points are right on. I totally agree with you that people need to be much more strategic about Social Networking if it is going to pay off for them.

As you know, I was recently in Dubai where National Director Bijay Shah invited me to conduct a special session for the BNI members in the area. During this session I specifically covered how to use LinkedIn to generate more quality referrals and visitors to their chapters.

I will also volunteer to contribute an article on LinkedIn with particular emphasis on how to use it in conjunction with BNI.
Laura Wagner » BNI’s Founder Ivan Misner Gives Advice About Social Media Says:
July 18th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
[...] For the record, I think #4 is where many businesses are at and it’s my goal to fix that. Here is Dr. Misner’s full article. http://successnet.czcommunity.com/from-the-founder/networking-with-social-media/5732/ [...]
Jean@MommyToTwoBoys Says:
August 5th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Great article. I especially like your thoughts on organizing and planning things out. Thanks!
William J. Osgood Says:
August 6th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
hello Ivan,
This article is very powerful and well thought out, thank you. When mentioning the budgeted time allotment and strategy for how to respond, post and have conversations, I have a very powerful suggestion to help with this.

I recommend to my clients to spend increments of 15 minutes, no more in what is called the 15 minute game. This is to keep strategically focused on the most important elements of social media and networking without distracting or detracting from the major projects you are working on.

I challenge your readers to adopt a strategy that literally breaks up the online networking/ social media strategy into a series of 15 minute games. Your readers, if they accept this challenge will find out they can perform at sometimes a 3 to 4 increase in productivity with better quality.

best,
William
Frank Fox Says:
September 3rd, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Thanks for all the great information. This was really helpful

27 Responses to “Networking with Social Media”

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