I know we’re all *on* social media. And we’re all tweeting and posting and promoting stuff all over the place. But do you have a plan? And I don’t mean an activity plan. I mean an EMPIRE plan?

We spend so much of our day on social media, it’s a shame not to capture some of that energy in the direction of building our empire. Let me explain.

DAILY ACTIVITY

• Tweet hot topics
• Tweet my recent content from several partners and blogs
• Facebook hot topics
• Facebook recent content
• Read email and pick up hot topics and stories for Twitter and Facebook.
• Check Instagram – repost relevant stuff to Facebook

EMPIRE-BUILDING ACTIVITY

Life in general has a lot of social interaction online. But with a few extra tools you can make every tweet an empire-building tweet and every Facebook post an audience building post. Let’s see how.

Twitter: Why build only one Twitter account? Twitter is great when focused on a single topic. I have SIX twitter accounts that I use regularly. And each has a slightly different audience focus. This allows me to be very targeted in my sharing. And on the occasional tweet that fits across all six accounts, I have a much larger audience. Building Twitter followings is a pain in the ass, but if you do it on several accounts at once you can maintain the laser focus that active followers demand.

Facebook: Facebook pages are the secret weapon on Facebook. With a page, when you post you have the option to BOOST that post. (Yes, Facebook is a pay-for-reach platform now, get over it.) And here is how you make the most of boosting. 1. Post a lot of content to your page. (Relevant content only, please.) 2. Watch for posts that show good activity (Likes, Loves, Shares, Comments) and consider boosting those posts. If they did well with your organic reach, they will probably do well when you boost them beyond your Friends and Followers.

Thread your posts. If you are about to repost a political joke, consider adding a page about political humor and posting to that page first. 1. It reduces the overall Facebook posts that you send to friends. 2. It begins to build an audience for your brand of political humor. 3. If you want to build an audience in this area, you can now boost to Friends of Followers, who are likely to have similar interests.

Instagram: If Instagram is now bigger than Twitter in the US that makes it work looking at. Add a "follow me on instagram" to your social properties and blogs. I’m considering building a few new Instagram accounts for more specific topics. But don’t discount Instagram as a platform. You can include URLS in the text comments. And if you put your message in the image, then you’ve got a Pinterest-like growth platform. I’m still learning about Instagram, but it’s a force to be considered.

LinkedIn: The Facebook-for-Business is worthy of your attention. But they still haven’t figured out the Facebook "promote to friends and friends of friends" magic that has made Facebook such an easy pay-for-reach platform. My LinkedIn posts get about 1/10th the love as my Facebook posts, but I do notice my profile gets more views (a lot more views) when I’m posting. And if you can build up a "following" on LinkedIn, perhaps you will be posting to the choir.

SlideShare: Now owned by LinkedIn, slide share is my 2nd business website. I generate over 1,000 views a week on my Slideshare presentations. And while those clicks and reads are not translating into website traffic, I am building my reputation as a thought leader and strategist. If you’ve got a great PPT deck, share your genius with the rest of us. Need an idea for your PPT presentation, check out the best presentations on Slideshare.

YouTube: Owned by Google, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine. If your content is not on YouTube you are missing a huge opportunity. Short-form video is in. Make several 2-minute videos, and get your message up on YouTube. Then share your video on YouTube. (Facebook has been making some noise about how great Video-on-Facebook is, but I still use YouTube to build my channels and playlists on various topics.)

Pinterest: I used to be a big fan. I don’t do much on Pinterest any more. If the topic is PIN-Friendly, by all means, give it a shot. But I’ve found the linking and promotional aspects of Pinterest to be lacking.

All About the Metrics

Here’s the bottom line: If it does not generate business (a contact request, a new client, a download) it’s not effective. Find the ONE thing that generates a SALE and then multiply that activity by 10X. Don’t become a spammer, but do find what works for your empire. Then continue to do that. And to know what’s working you must have a good grip on your metrics. Do you know what "activities" generated those last 10 "contact us" page views? Well, it’s time you did some digging into your Google Analytics.

Being social is what we all do everyday. Being GOOD at social is having a plan, measuring your success at reaching and exceeding plan goals, and coming up with the next 5 ideas to try. The needle is in the haystack of social media, but you can use groups and multiple accounts to sort the haystack into smaller piles before seeking the WIN.

John McElhenney

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink: https://uber.la/2016/02/building-empire/

A few more posts to help your Empire-Building:

• Going Big on Twitter
• Growing a Flock of Followers on Twitter
• OFFICIAL: Facebook Reach is Pay-to-Play
• Content Marketing Analytics and Pop Quiz
• Why and How Twitter is Killing Itself