Personal social media strategy in five steps

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I started to use social media with other intent than to entertain myself around two weeks ago after listening to Gary Vee telling me I should do it for a month. I didn't really have a strategy, so I just started, which is an absolutely valid strategy: Just start simple and adjust on the way. The more you walk the clearer the path becomes. Ten minutes ago a sudden inspiration hit me. In Germany, we say "Geistesblitz", which is "Mindlightning" translated literally. Since you are probably not here to learn German words, let me explain the five-step strategy. Every step consists of asking on a specific question.

Who do I act as online?

I don't mean faking something, just setting a focus. Your profile should always represent what you really are, but you don't have to show all of your personality. Confusing? Here is a Venn diagram to make that point clearer:

Your focus is just a part of your profile and your profile is just a part of your personality. For example, I want to act as "Web dev, Writer, Blogger". That is what my twitter profile says and that is what I mostly do content about. That doesn't mean of course I can't tweet about Corona or something like that. On the other side, there are things I don't tweet about like my family. You have to decide what feels right for you and what you mainly want to produce content about.

Who do I want to reach with that?

Social media is communication and communication consist of at least two persons. Who are the persons you want to reach? You should answer that for every role you are "playing" online. I will give you an example: As a web developer, I want to reach other developers, potential clients and potential employers. As a writer, I want to reach other writers and potential readers. Again that doesn't act as a restriction, more as a direction.

What are my goals?

Whatever you do, you should always know why, because otherwise you will stop when it gets hard and if you do that, what is the point in starting at all? Your goals should act as a motivation and a reminder of why you do social media. To answer this question you just take every person group you named in the previous question and write all the reasons why you want to communicate with these persons. If it is the same for multiple persons you should combine it of course. As a developer, I want to exchange thoughts with other developers to learn from each other. I also want to show what I can to the people that need my skills, so I can help them out. It is always nice to have goals that are not selfish, but selfish reasons are fine as long as they motivate you. 

Which platforms are the right ones for my goals?

There are a lot of platforms out there. Probably more than you know of and probably you don't consider all of your possibilities. Of course, you can find everyone on the big seven platforms Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat and Youtube. Depending on your role there could be specific platforms or forums you want to be involved in. I will take me as an example again: StackOverflow is a forum where developers help each other and GitHub is a platform where you can upload your code. Both are very well known in the developer scene. Even if I can't reach anyone over these platforms, with enough contribution my profile will look pretty impressive. I could link it in my other profiles and developer would understand.
You should think about which of the big platforms and especially which other specific platforms you can reach the people you want to reach. 

What content do I distribute on which platform?

I think the most important rule here is "jab jab jab, right hook". Gary explains it in the same-named book: If you want to sell (right hook), you need to build an audience first. How to do that? By bringing value (jab) to them. First, give value by sharing your knowledge or entertaining and then after bringing a lot of value to your audience, you can ask for their help. If you want to learn more strategies to dominate social media, than here is a great article on seotool.tv: https://seotools.tv/social-media-domination

Ending word

As often doing and thinking should be in a good balance. To repeat my strategy: Just start simple and adjust on the way. I have tested it for myself and feel like I understand what my goals are and how to reach them. At least for the moment. Life is always changing and so should your strategy. All you read here are just my ideas and the method can certainly be improved. What do you think? Please share your opinion as a comment or on twitter: https://twitter.com/arturqnz

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