Social Media-Why Are We So Social?

Social Media. We constantly hear about it. Naturally, we have a Facebook account, perhaps a Twitter account. Oh and what's that other popular site that can make anyone a celebrity? YouTube.The question becomes why are we "liking", "tweeting" and "tubing" in the first place? And how can we ensure that all this activity is successful? Of course it's fun to test out your aspiring stand up skills or to "like" your favorite brand on Facebook. But what does all of this really boil down to?

If you are a business owner, a brand, or simply trying to establish yourself online-Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can be great tools for various reasons. For one, they rank pretty darn high on the search scale.

When I first started using Twitter, my handle (aka Twitter name) was @jaclynofalltrades. I thought this was a clever way to promote my personal brand UNTIL a wise man named @Jason_Pollock advised me that my handle should be my name to help establish myself online.

If you were to Google my name, Twitter is the first thing that ranks. This is great assuming that there are more "Jaclyn Mullen's" out there (which I know there are). My facebook shows up as 5th on Google and 6th on Bing.

I have an online presence and am visible to those who are looking to contact me. Maybe they want to pick my brain about branding, perhaps they want to offer me a lead role on their TV show--the Jaclyn of All Trades has a wide array of goals. Whatever the case, I can be found which is what you want for your business in this tech day and age.

Additionally, these platforms are great tools to generate traffic back to your site which can ultimately lead to an expanded audience, an increase in sales and raised brand awareness.

I do want to add that there is a point to all of this online chatter and promotion--engagement. You can't just tweet or post YouTube videos that show your level of narcissism and fail to provide VALUE to the online community. Not only will you not have sticking power, you will also be tuned out.

Sharing is caring, we promote our knowledge and expertise to keep everyone INFORMED.

Having said that, here are a few tools that I use to help ensure efficiency of my Tweets and social media time!

-Use an aggregator for Twitter such as Nambu. This program has allowed me to maximize my ability to retweet and quote tweets which is important for establishing conversation.
-Follow the advice of Chris Brogan Promote your stuff at a 12:1 ratio (12 retweets from other people for every 1 tweet you promote yourself.)
-Keep current on all Facebook, YouTube and Twitter news and developments with sites like AllTop.com
-Have fun. Don't be afraid to show your creativity or wit online. Look at the success of Autotune the News "Bed Intruder" video.

Feel free to comment on this as well as follow me on Twitter @jaclynmullen
More blog posts to come!