Chris Culbertson provided me with this guest post last week. Since today was a down day as far as postings, I wanted to get this up on Blog For Profit. Chris runs a web based health and wellness company called, KCfit.net He is also one of the young professionals behind the site Ideas and Angles. I recently had the good fortune to meet Chris at Highlight Midwest.
By Chris Culbertson:
Blog for Profit. Let me rephrase that for this post, Blog to Increase Profit. A “simple” way to increase profit is to offer more to more people. Offer more through your blog. Build your network using social media so you have more people to offer your product or service to.
One thing to keep in mind is that you do not have to master all that is social media. You do not have to use each and every social media resource out there in order to have an effective strategy. In fact, there is no way to use EVERY social media site, application, and widget. There are just too many. Beyond that, many do very similar things. Pick a few things and use them well. It is better to use a few things well, than a ton of things not well. Just like Grant when he outlined, in his post Building a Successful Blog — Part 4 — Social Media, his outposts using just Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sure there are tons more out there, but those don’t work for Grant. At least not right now.
You see, when you work with a company to implement a social media strategy, it can be a bit overwhelming for them to try to grasp all of this at once. That is why we help them implement a strategy using a system that involves monitoring the conversation, joining the conversation, and finally leading the conversation. Build your network, then bring the people in your network to you, or your blog. Use the many resources available to reach a lot of people and then have good constant communication with them through the many more available online resources. All of these resources are touch points to reach customers and potential customers to learn more about them and bring them back to a place for them to spend more money with you.
A social media strategy does not have to be hard. In fact, if it seems hard, then it is not for you. That is why I encourage everyone to do something they are passionate about. It makes it easier to talk about your business or profession when you genuinely enjoy what you do. This is probably the first step in launching a social media strategy. Ultimately you have implement a strategy that works with what you already have and toward the goals you have set. You do not have to “burn down” your old marketing plan or message, just extend the message through more tools.
Find out what tools work for you, then make them work for you. Remember, they are all touch points to bring them back to what is truly yours and what generates you revenue, or in the spirit of this blog, PROFIT.
