Communication Skills

I've been reading and listening to lots of advice recently about how important it is to use social media to promote and market your business.  As someone who is fairly new to using social media websites, I have found most of the tips and advice extremely useful and can totally see how using these sites can be beneficial for my business. However, there is something crucial missing for me as nobody talks about how to actually use social media sites!

I went to a Business Link seminar a few months ago to learn about Twitter. There were lots of people at the event, and from the comments in the room, I believe that most people were new or newish to using social media. Whilst the speaker was very engaging and encouraged us all to go away and start using Twitter, which I did, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I signed up for Twitter and half-heartedly attempted to use it, but I can't say it really grabbed me as I didn't know what I was doing.

I continued hearing about the great benefits to be had from using social media but this didn't mirror my experiences, so I must admit I wasn't convinced by the whole social media 'thing'. I then got talking to a social media trainer at a networking event and decided to invest in some training, which was money well spent. I now understand how to use social media sites, what I need to be doing and how often. Admittedly I'm still learning but I now feel confident that I'm on the right track.

My advice to anyone about to start using Twitter, Facebook, Linked In etc is to find out how to use them properly at the start - it will save you a lot of wasted time!