All of us are being bombarded with advice, seminars, etc. about the importance of having a presence on the important social media platforms. Great advice.... not very helpful, though, without also giving some advice about developing a strategy for using your presence on all of these sites! 
When I first started posting our team's profile and information on sites like: ACTIVE RAIN, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND MYSPACE... I wasn't quite certain how I was going to use these profiles to market our business and to generate buzz, interest and leads. In hind site... I now realize that developing the STRATEGY is the first step that you should take in this effort... not the last! You must use the strategy that you develop to generate the keywords, titles & the content that you write for your profiles on all of these social media sites. It is much harder to do this in reverse, because you waste a lot of time rewriting and optimizing after the fact if you don't do it right the first time! Here are a 6 questions to ask yourself BEFORE you create profiles or content for any social media site:
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Who is my audience? OR even more important... who do I WANT my audience to be?
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What information will the audience that I am trying to attract be looking for and how can I supply that information in an engaging, interactive way?
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Who is my competition? AND how can I be unique enough to stand out? EX: Determine the direction that everyone else is swimming in and "dog paddle" in the opposite direction!
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What search optimization techniques do I want to use within the "social community" capabilities & guidelines that I can apply to be found by my chosen audience?
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What type of personality do I want to portray for my business? EX: professionally casual, humorous, professionally formal, etc.
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What kind of result am I looking to produce in direct relation to my presence on this social site?
Once you've answered these questions... YOU HAVE YOUR STRATEGY! Now... have fun, be creative, & (since this way of communicating with the masses is relatively new) enjoy the rush that you used to get as a child... learning, exploring, experimenting... with fresh & new experiences! Gotta love that!
