Social media has become a part of everyday life. Almost eight in ten Australians use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google. Social Media guru and CAE tutor Sue Ellson shares five ways you can use social media to boost your career or business.
1. Choosing the most effective social media
In an ideal world, you can develop techniques to attract your audience to your content rather than trying to chase them down. But this is not the case most of the time. You need to think very carefully about your target audience when trying to attract opportunities for your career or enterprise and plan how to reach them. Once they have connected with you, various social media platforms can be used to keep them engaged and generate automatic follow up.
2. Demonstrating your digital competency
If you want to achieve your goals, it is not enough to be digitally literate. You need to be able to incorporate various additional components to make sure your content reaches the right decision makers. This includes understanding algorithms, signals, behaviours and incorporating images, videos and audio into your social media.
3. Enabling your message to position you effectively
If you love producing content, you will probably love social media. But if dedicating time and energy to producing content is out of the question, then there are alternatives. You can engage with other people’s content or curate quality content. Starting with where you feel the most comfortable is extremely important.
4. Building your network
Building a network and an effective digital footprint is essential when promoting yourself online. Your network can keep you up to date with what is happening in your industry or profession and be the source of amazing referrals. Increasing your number of connections and followers can also improve the value of your digital presence.
5. Reviewing and improving
Although many people have no idea how social media is performing, there are a number of metrics that can give you clues as to what does and does not work. To succeed, you’ll also need to know the best techniques for identifying improvements and opportunities.
One way to get up and running with social media is by learning more about the platform and how to make the most of it with a short course. All of Sue’s short courses are tailored for each participant – unlike a YouTube tutorial that is limited to press and play. Every session includes real-life examples and interactions with other participants to explore what works, as well as social media principles that can apply in the long term. If you’re interested in knowing more, check out Sue’s upcoming LinkedIn for Business: Introduction, Social Media Strategy for Business, How to Promote Your Website Free of Charge and Create a Simple WordPress Website short courses.
Sue Ellson BBus MIML MAHRI CDAA ASA MPC WV is an Independent LinkedIn Specialist, Trainer, Author and Consultant. Her first website went online in 2001 and she is one of the first 80,000 people in the world on LinkedIn (she joined on 21 December 2003). In 2016, she wrote and published three books: 120 Ways To Achieve Your Purpose With LinkedIn, 120 Ways To Attract The Right Career Or Business and 120 Ways To Market Your Business Hyper Locally.
Sue has been consulting on the topic of LinkedIn since 2008. An avid learner, Sue attends between one and four events every week, both online and offline, to keep herself up to date with the latest trends so that she can provide maximum value to both students and clients. Sue has been teaching social media at the CAE since 2014.