Do You Use Social Media or Does It Use You?

Do you use social media to express your personal thoughts and views on the world? Or do you use it for personal satisfaction? Maybe you use it to try to get business value out of it? In episode 172 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Erik as he shares some tips on how to use social media in the business world. There is no right answer to these questions, and a lot of people use platforms like Facebook or Instagram for purely personal reasons. Some use it to share pictures of their kids & family, drinks/food, or whatever they want. These posts are perfectly fine if you use those platforms for personal reasons, but with business purposes, really think about the strategies you wish to employ. Are things like posting about drinks by the pool, hanging with friends, or going to a party going to help you business? The key here is to think about how you can separate social media from your personal and professional aspects. With a platform like Facebook, you can have a personal profile that you lock down and only your friends, family, or whoever you allow will see this page. Then, you can also have a business page that you set up for your business or personal brand that is wide open to the world. You can then use that business page to make a business account on Instagram. If you use platforms like this, really take some time to think through your objectives. Think: why are you doing this, what is the purpose, and what is the objective behind these business accounts? Erik’s main objectives are to obtain new business, get referrals, and to be seen as an authority figure in his industry. He also hopes to help entrepreneurs that are younger and have not gone through the experiences he has. That is what he cares about and what he hopes to accomplish, which are topics he posts about as well. There is more to his personal brand strategy, and has even written down this strategy for himself and Array Digital as well. The point here is to think through what you want to do with social media for your business, and stop posting irrelevant content. Most people just post random stuff without a clear reason for doing so. Posting things like drinks by the pool should not be on business profiles because it won’t achieve your objectives. If you haven't defined objectives, that is step number one. If you have these objectives defined, you must be diligent and disciplined and avoid doing something contrary. You want to extract as much value out of social media, before it extracts value out of you! — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups. — Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is the also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.