Social Media Tune Up 2011

Last year I started a project I thought would be fairly straightforward, a social media tune up. It proved to be a more challenging task than I’d envisaged.

The intention was to go systematically through my main platform-basedsocial media presences, with the aim of refining and generally improving what was there.

Although I thought the project would be straightforward, the aim was not unambitious and I was keen to get on with it.

I would go steadily through the key platforms and reinvigorate them, one by one.

I listed them thus:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Delicious
• This blog, Des Walsh dot Com
• Flickr
• RSS Feeds – mainly my BlogBridge account

I believe my at least subconscious expectation at that time was that I would have them all done by no later than the end of the year.

The actual result was more modest.

Actually, it was pathetic. Three posts about Twitter.

I believe they were good posts, with helpful information for others.

Trouble is, at that rate it was going to take another year, or maybe two, to complete the Tune Up.

And in fact the third post about Twitter promised a fourth, possibly but not necessarily the last in that sub-series. I’m intending to get around to that soon.

But what to do about the bigger project, the overall tune up?

Well, it’s the New Year isn’t it? And what with everyone forming good intentions and making resolutions, it seems like a good idea to re-focus and get this sucker done – preferably much sooner than the end of this year, let alone next year!

The difference is that this time I will be more aware that tuning up my presence on each platform may take a bit longer than I expect.

First I’ll do that fourth post on Twitter, mainly about hashtags (#) and lists.

Then I’ll do one on using dashboards, especially Hootsuite and TweetDeck, to streamline my participation on various platforms, especially Twitter.

I intend then to jump to Facebook, with some attention to sorting out how best to use my Facebook Profile and Pages.

I’ll report here as I go.

Should keep me busy.

From my experience so far the project will also help to keep me honest. Giving advice to others about using social media, I value the reality checks I get when I work like this on my own social media presence. Note I’m not saying I enjoy the reality checks, but I do value them.

Des Walsh

Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.