I have listed three simple principle for my Social Media Strategy;

a. Building a relationship with your friends and followers

Here I have presented you with 3 Simple Social Media Listening Techniques and 6 Ways Participation Adds Value To Twitter.

b. Develop trust between your brand and your friends/followers

And here I presented you with 6 Ways to Building Trust through Social Media

c. Create attention towards my products, campaigns, events, specials etc

Now I will add the next step in this process. You should now start info-sharing through blogging. Through blogging, you can engage key audiences directly in fast, honest, two-way conversations.

Here are some reasons why you need a blog;

1. To share new information quickly

Social Media has brought info-sharing to a new level. Mashable recently presented an article that illustrate this really good; If You Printed Twitter It Would Cover 350 Million Sheets of Paper. In 2010 we will see new players and new integrations within Social Media. If you are a game player, then start make your move today.

At least get you feet wet. Go to Blogger.com or WordPress.com and start a free blog.

Look at your blog as your little Internet Real Estate. This is where you connect more on a personal level with your visitors, and potential customers.

Start define the information you can share with us. And start ask yourself some simple question;

What topics are you interested in?
Who is most likely to be interested in my topic?
Who do I want to share your information with, and why?
Where do I find people interested in this topic?
What are they talking about already?
Which websites does my target audience visit on the net?
What tactics and tools do I have the capacity to implement?
Who is most likely to purchase my info/product?
What is my measurable objectives (example participate in 2-3 online blogging courses)?
What can I learn from the experience others working within my niche?
Who is my competitions?
Will I need to outsource some parts of my blog?
How will I measure success?
What constitute failures?
What is my most common fears?

Start with listing 2 – 3 answer per question here. This way you will start put down your own knowledge and experience. You will find areas where you lack some knowledge, make sure you write this down.

When you start blogging you want to make sure you can back up your information, or that you know how to find the answer if you get a question you can’t answer right away.

2. Show of your passion

Be passionate about your topic, show your visitors that this is something you love and really enjoy.

You are usually at your best when you love what you do, and are able to listen to your hart. My passion for Social Media I had since I started talk to my friends from PC to PC. Then move on to BBS, Instant Messaging and then adapting to some of the many Social Media channels many of uses. Sometimes your passion might get to places you never dreamed about. My passion for Instant Messaging (ICQ) got me in contact with a wonderful girl, that today is my wife. I listened to my hart and made some crazy decisions. Love sometimes make us do weird things

And if you are passionate about your topic, it is much easier to be a game player.

One word of advice, don’t limit yourself to one area within topic. Have 2 – 3 areas within your topic that you can cover. You can also look into similar topics that is related to yours. At least have a backup plan.

I write about topics primarily about Twitter. But I am not in control of Twitter. I rely on that Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and their associates keep provide us with a product that I still can be passionate about.

While I still keep build my knowledge around utilizing Twitter as a tool for my brand, I also work on expanding my knowledge to other areas of interest.

3. Introduce your product/service

Working with Social Media and blogs is not very complicated. But for some reason it becomes very complicated when someone plant the seed of develop our own product/service.

Here I will admit that this has been one the biggest challenges in my Social Media Strategy. Like many of you I have an; ok background; ok work history; I had my failures and my successes. But all of this has been working for others providing service information for their product/service. So when someone planted the seed in my mind of developing my own product/service I was way out of my comfort zone.

And then all kind of fears hit me. With this I started to doubt my own knowledge and experience. But fortunately I have followed the principles in part a. Building a relationship with your friends and followers and b. Develop trust between your brand and your friends/followers. This has resulted in gained self confidence. And I have instead of focus on my adversities started to focus on my opportunities.

I built a free training program /newsletter where I provide additional insight. And I built Simple Twitter manual that cover Twitter basics. This is also free to download for Subscribers of my free training program /newsletter. I am in the process of building modules for a paid program.

This comes as result of going through several books on Twitter, Blogging and Social Media Marketing. I have taken several paid blog training programs. Participated in Social Media events.

I have invested in myself to better serve my blog visitors, and back up the value of my products.

As a result of my own efforts to help I become one of the Featured Bloggers at the Authority Blogger Forum.

4. Be an Customer Service Agent

You have now started to build a brand for yourself.

This brand you need to back up with a solid Social Media Marketing plan.

You need to set realistic goals for your brand. And define what you intend to give in return to achieve these goals.

I worked within management at a hotel. And there you return or frequent quest members is the ones that over long term provide the best value for the hotel. You want make sure you have a system in place that recognize your return visitors.

For your first time customers you want to provide the element of positive surprise. This has to be something they did not expect for the prize they paid. You can give the first comment on your article free access to your product/service. If they mention it is their birthday, anniversary etc. then find a creative way to send them a gift.

Be honest and tell if you made a mistake. Remember in most cases it takes about 10 positives to make up for 1 negative.

5. Be an Influential

There are many great influential bloggers out there. Many of them has built large tribes around their brand. You can be one of them.

Influence is built over time making sure you provide value over and over again. On my Social Media Bloggers To Watch list you will find some influential blogger, and some that is up and coming.

My tips is to study these bloggers, and see how they follow the principles I have described.

6. Put a Face with your brand

Always provide a image of yourself on your blog. If possible use the same picture on all Social Media channels you participate in.

This is the best way to show that you are actually a real person. And you will then when you appear at a Social Media event be amazed how many it is that really want to network with you. Guess why? Because they feel they already know you.

7. Make an impact on Search Engines

Blogs can be effective tools for raising the profile of your product or service, but only if your target audience find them. Search engine optimization (SEO) can be effective for raising the profile of your blog.

Again one of the wonderful things I have experienced by showing that I can provide value with my info-sharing, is that my friends provide value back again. It has now truly become a win-win situation for me.

I gained better knowledge on how to better prepare my blog for search engines, and started to learn which plugins that is most effective for my blog.

The best info here I found by going directly to the Search Engine. Go to Google Accounts and sign up if you not already have an account here.

Google provide all the tools you need to make an impact on Search Engines.

Resources

One of the blog training course I taken, has been through my good friend David Risley. He is a pro-blogger, and his information really proves it. A great starter course is David’s 3DayMoney program.

And Darren Rowse training is also highly recommended. I use his excellent reference manual 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

One of the training modules I participate in is 31 Day Challenge: Optimize Your Blog For Social Media by John Hayden.

And when you are ready to step up your game then check out Chris Garrett, and his Authority Blogger Training.

Disclosure

Make sure you take time to read my Disclosure since one of the things we will focus on this year is making money with our tweets and blog.

One of the tools that has been very helpful for me in my efforts to market my blog, has been Aweber. Take a Free test drive yourself today.

I hope you enjoyed this article! Comments is encouraged and welcome!

Your friend,

Are Morch
@TwtrCoach