Bonnie Cribbs on Social Media - Part 2

For today's post, Bonnie Cribbs will be guest-posting on my behalf.  I actually featured him on Sensible Stylista last week.  He answered a slew of  important questions regarding social media.   Click HERE if you want to know more about develop a bigger following!

How do I engage FB “fans”? 

Ask questions. Start conversations. Follow up questions.  Extended conversations.  Follow up comments. Once you can get conversations started with a few, more people are more likely to join in the conversation. 

It may serve you and a few friends to get together and comment and engage on each others’ blogs and facebook page.  This will entice others to join in.  No one seems to want to comment on a status that hasn’t been commented on before until you are viewed as one who has lots of comments.  Odd isn’t it?

How often should I tweet?

This is another one of those million dollar questions.  Every blog and every marketer on twitter should have a target audience and should know the demographics of their following.  Do your followers (as a whole) follow a lot of people or do they follow less than 250?

A tweet only has a shelf life of 10-15 minutes for most users.  If most of your followers follow more than 500 people, that shelf life is much shorter, so it’s ok to tweet frequently.  If you have followers who only follow 20 people, then their twitter feed isn’t seeing a lot of activity and most likely they are not checking twitter much.

I tweet about once an hour.  Most of my followers have 500+ people they follow so my tweets are rather hit or miss for a lot of them.  But for those followers who follow less than 100 people I’m sure I annoy the heck out of their twitter feeds.  My target market includes influential people who are well connected, so even if I am annoying some people it’s ok, because most likely they do not fall in my target market.

All that said, you have to know your target market to make this determination.

The better question to ask is how engaged are you on twitter?  If you are very well engaged and having conversations you are doing the right thing!

How does one manage their time effectively? 

It’s much like managing your money and being on a budget.  You have to tell your time where to go and how its going to be used. 

From your goals you should have a set of tasks and activities that you need to do in order to reach your goals. Start by taking those tasks/activities and plugging them into your schedule.  This way you have on your calendar the things you must do in order to reach your goals. 

Just this week I wrote a post on time management and how to effectively use your time.  Actually, Kim’s question prompted this post - Here is the link to it.

If you do not control your time, it will control you.

I do a ton of Internet Marketing on several social media platforms.  So I have to schedule time that I will be on each platform.  I also have to be disciplined enough to stay focused and work and not play.  Social media can suck hours out of your day, or it can be incredibly beneficial - it all depends on how you use it.

A daily routine that is scheduled out telling your time how it’s going to be used will help you get your time deficit under control.  You have to have a balance of work, relaxation, exercise and fun.

This could have been summed up with one word: Discipline.

Which social media platform do you find to be most “effective”?

The beautiful thing about social media is all of the major platforms are highly effective if used properly.  I believe the answer to this is up to the user and what they enjoy the most.  I always suggest you find a platform or two and master them instead of having 7 different accounts and do none of them well. 

A laser focus on one platform is much more effective than being on multiple platforms and not doing any of them well. Engage & provide value - it’s the key to all of them.

What makes a blogger go viral? 

I believe it’s rapport, like-ability, outstanding content or something so absurd it has to be shared or talked about.  But the latter only has a short term life.  Being a person people connects with seems to be the biggest indicator.  And typically people connect well with great story tellers.

If ya'll want to learn more about social media, make sure to check out Bonnie's blog.  He's also a very active tweeter, so click HERE if you'd like to get in touch with him personally.