Social media groups are topic-specific communities accessible for ‘members’ via  popular social networks such as Facebook and the business-oriented LinkedIn.  Members of these virtual groups can post questions, discussion starters, even news and job listings.

I’ve previously written about starting, leading and nurturing virtual groups, but there’s also an art to being a member.  Master that art, and the benefits will be plentiful.  Here are some ideas to help you get the most out of virtual group participation.


It’s just as sweet to receive as to give!
It’s truly okay to be a group participant who’s more focused on receiving information than giving it.  Groups can be excellent sources of information and ideas, which is exactly why they may be worth your time. You are perfectly welcome to slip in the “back of the room,” so to speak, and simply take in the online banter. 

And if you’re new to the whole scene, I actually advise you focus on receiving first.  Observe, take in, familiarize, and then you’ll be ready with targeted questions and postings when the time is right.

What you put in is what you’ll get out.
This is not a contradiction to the “sweet to receive” point I just made.  Even if you’re only participating to receive information, you still have to be an active participant, putting in time and effort to cull through postings and determine what’s useful for you. 

LinkedIn groups generate daily feeds—a list of all the postings for the group—that are emailed to members for review.  You can customize how frequently (or infrequently) to receive those feeds, but you simply must look at those feeds in order to gain any benefit from being part of the group.  I get feeds from each of the LinkedIn groups I’ve joined via once-daily emails, and I do open those emails and scroll through the content.  I’ve established a rhythm of reading quickly, assessing and clicking through to items of particular interest.  I’ve learned of many useful things by reading the group feeds, thus it’s worth the time and effort I invest.

Facebook groups often require even more proactivity from members, as there’s no integrated mechanism for auto-email feeds as with LinkedIn.  I’ve also found that many people start groups and don’t nurture them; thus, I lose interest quickly.  I’ll only “put in” to groups that are proven to worthwhile.

Use; don’t abuse.
If you join groups with the aim to target messages to specific audiences, proceed cautiously and exercise wise decorum.  In the study of group dynamics of the three-dimensional kind, it’s quite clear the conversation dominators often alienate other members and end up isolated.  This truth applies to virtual groups as well.  Even online, share the floor, and never use a group as your platform for virtual advertising. 

The beauty of virtual groups lies in the shared interests and like-mindedness of its members.  By joining a group, you do gain lines of communications with members who may be potential customers or colleagues.  Don’t abuse that access; use it wisely.


Be a first responder.
Earn your chance to be heard in your online groups by offering genuine, substantive responses to others’ postings and comments.  If you have an answer to someone’s posted question, “speak” up with a timely response.  This is the heart of the art of conversation, engaging others at their points of need and interests to spark reciprocal exchanges. 

LinkedIn actually has an integrated rating/acknowledgement system that allows those who answer question to earn ‘expert’ status on the site.  When someone posts a question on LinkedIn, they can actually select what answer was most helpful.  If your answers receive top rankings frequently enough, you’ll be noted an “expert” with a green star on your profile.

Offering responses is an excellent way to become a presence, as participant and a resource to your fellow group member.  It’s a validating activity that adds value to the group in many ways.  After all, social networking is all about online conversation, and that means two-way interaction!  Commit to comment.


Bear in mind, I’m not a “joiner” by nature.  I’m prone to the impromptu, informal gathering rather than the structured kind.  Yet I’ve benefitted professionally from joining up and participating in social media groups, and my experience has been positive enough that I recommend other small business owners consider it as well. 

Invest a little time and effort, and you could experience a group dynamic!

Thanks!

I knew this was how it was going to be.

I knew there’d be seasons in which I’d get so busy I’d have to let my own blog take a backseat to my paid writing gigs.  As a matter of fact, that’s why I’d been a writer without a blog for years; I’m usually blessedly busy doing this stuff for other people who deposit money in my account for the effort.  So when I finally committed to starting my own blog—this very one you’re reading—earlier this year, I made my peace with the reality that busy seasons would come and I’d have to prioritize accordingly. 

Though I’d prefer to never have a lag between postings, it’s reasonably acceptable in my case because...

• This is self-governed blog.  Though I’m committed to writing for my readers, I’m not obligated to any sponsors, advertisers or clients who dictate my schedule on this endeavor.
• I’d established a good root system from the get-go, so the blog’s continued to be read even without fresh posts for a few weeks; I truly knew I’d be back on track as soon as my workload allowed.
  
• The blog itself led to some of the new work that, by necessity, diverted my attention. Thus, my goal with this blog—to share credible ideas that help small biz people and open professional opportunities for me—is already being achieved.
  
• Paying clients always come first, in a tie with my sanity.  There's only one of me, so something had to give over the last weeks!

According to Harper’s Index this month, 94% of all existing blogs have not been updated in four months.  That’s a lot of cyber space going to waste.  That statistic makes my four+-week hiatus seem relatively harmless.  But what about your the blog for your business?  When’s the last time you posted?

In these weeks that I’ve not written on smallBizBigtime, I’ve actually been blogging faithfully on behalf of clients for whom it would not be reasonably acceptable to not post in a month, let alone four. 

For branding and business blogs, it’s not okay to be among the 94% that are out-of-date and stale.  When you consider the reasons and strategies for blogging for your business, it becomes abundantly clear why you should commit to consistency. 

A business blog will help you...

• Establish credibility:  become the authority/the resource/ the idea generator/the facilitator, become the company that’s quotable and ‘repostable’
• Raise profile and visibility:  create fresh content to bolster web presence (SEO), use content throughout the social web to become a regular and welcomed fixture in customers’ lives, cross-pollenate with other sites/pages/online networks
  
• Inform, educate and motivate:  engage customers, inform in a timely fashion, invite interaction, earn the right to sell, make special offers
  
• Craft your message, build your brand:  be your own publisher, establish your own look and content style,   communicate within your own guidelines...to your own, targeted audiences
  
• Maximize content:  heighten other PR/marketing/promotional efforts by reusing content in other forums, ensure consistency of message, increase frequency of messaging, offer content to other media outlets (with assured attribution)
  

Obviously, there are many great reasons to not only start a blog, but to commit to one.  If you haven’t begun one yet, weigh it seriously before you dive in.  Are you prone to be momentarily motivated or intermittently committed?  Do you rarely have enough to say for your monthly newsletters?  Do you loathe writing?  Are you perplexed by social media in general?  Then maybe a company blog isn’t for you.  Or perhaps you should delegate the task to another employee or hire the help of someone like me to get you going. 

And if you do take on a blog, give at test run of a month (or two) before you promote it to the world, to make sure you’re going to be able to create great content on a regular basis.  Also note, there’s no rule about how frequently you must post, though “once a quarter” just won’t cut it.  Start realistically; slow and steady will win this race.

And if you’ve already got a blog but haven’t posted in a long while, consider whether or not to pull the plug.  Few things look less professional than a four-month old blog on your website.  If you aren’t ready to abandon ship, consider investing to get the help you need.

I’ll soon be starting a new blog on behalf of a client.  To get her rolling, I’m going to set up the blog—the account creation, the name, look and customization.  Then, I’ll write one post a week for her.  She can supplement as she has time or feels led throughout the week, but she’ll always be assured one healthy post per week.  We’ll be able to push that content out through her Facebook fan page, LinkedIn group and her company’s website.  I’ll be writing in her style and voice, so the brand will be enhanced in tandem with her credibility. 

This approach will cost her more than the total do-it-herself plan, but she knows full well she likely wouldn’t always do it if it were up to only herself!  But she believes a blog is another great way to take her small biz big time.

Thanks for reading today, and I promise it won’t be another four weeks until we meet again!

An interesting phenomena happened again the other day and while it's happened before, the intensity of the reaction this time made me smile... and think about an important feature of social media: Accountability.

A person on LinkedIn sent a spam message to all his contacts including me. The reaction was swift and severe. A great number of contacts sent him back varying degrees of negative feedback, some of it rather emotionally charged. As an added bonus, in this case, because some of the replying people copied everyone who received the original message, the "dope-slap" was public.

I think everyone will agree that spam is extremely antisocial and relies heavily on anonymity for its success. Since social media is anything but anonymous, participants must be accountable for their blog posts, emails, tweets and other public comments. If they are not behaving in a "social" way, they will find out very quickly.

So two important contributions result from the use of social media. First, good old spam will be severly curtailed and secondly, people wil be taught social behavior regardless of whether they come into the space knowing it ahead of time.