Professional Social Media Accounts: The Essential Secret

When I started out as a writer/contributor for Comic Booked.com, I was briefed on the importance of social media networks for online businesses. We needed to publicize ourselves, our articles, and the site as a whole--and the more sharing, the better. We had to build our follower bases as much as possible and then tweet/share/+1 everything we wrote on as many platforms as possible. That makes sense, of course... but then people lost interest in everything I had to say. I started losing friends and followers that were people I knew and cared about, because as far as they were concerned I was just spamming them with the latest comic book news. Ouch.

I've mentioned this before on this blog, and I have to say that it's one of the trickier dilemmas I've had to face as an online professional. I found a solution to the social media problem soon after I started writing this blog by opening up a separate Twitter account for E.O.I.P. (@onlineincome19), where I focus exclusively on tips relevant to my business and this blog. My followers here are not my personal friends, and neither are those I follow. Instead, I use this account as a way to connect solely with professionals and information sources who can help me and/or hopefully benefit from what I have to say. I have only experienced growth from this account, and only positive reactions from others who have found it. Why? It's targeted. I'm sharing information with people who actually want to hear it, while at the same time preserving my other social accounts for my personal life.

Three questions that come up regarding professional social media accounts are when, why and how. I've already tackled a lot of the why. The timing depends on your business. You should open new social media accounts as soon as you're ready to start seriously promoting whatever you have to offer. "How" is a bit trickier. I want to stay as far from spamming others as I can, and I also want my updates to be regular and consistent. There's a super easy way to manage a professional Twitter account: find good sources of information and subscribe to them. Every blog has an RSS feed that you can find if you look around a bit, and if you go to your new Twitter account information, you'll find a place where you can input the RSS feed. That way, whenever the blog updates, the new article will show up on your Twitter account without your having to do anything. This has helped build my following and establish my reputation even though it took only a few minutes to set up.

If you run or are heavily involved with an online business, a professional social media account is essential to your success. It's also something that takes only moments to start on and no time at all to monitor, and will bring you traffic and popularity in a way that nothing else can.