Social Media Strategies for a startup

Ah... We are talking about social media optimization these days. It has become a buzz word now. I think small businesses can gain a lot with social media optimization... So just thought of writing a few lines about this new buzz word

These social media strategies are listed in the order of time dedicated to each of them.

1 – Personal Blog

Role:

• Main hub for my online presence
• Create a professional online presence for my unique skill set
• Provide people with tips and useful resources to build cross-cultural and international skills

Reason: To make it easy to find me

Time: between 1-3 hours every day

2 – Search

Role:

• Monitoring my name, blogs and business markets
• Business intelligence gathering
• Up-to-date monitoring of cross-cultural and international topics with a focus on both business and skill development
• Collecting useful resources for my personal blog

Reason: I do not know what I would do without this search. It is the first thing I do every day. It really is about business intelligence.

3 – Twitter

Role:

• Create strategic conversations on my core topics
• Under the radar marketing
• Build credibility
• Up-to-date monitoring of what is going on around cross-cultural and international topics with a focus on both business and skill development
• Collect useful resources for my personal blog
• Network with key players in the field of cross-cultural and international business
• Identify key sources of referrals for my business
• Market feedback
• Connect with people I would never meet otherwise and who are important for my business networking.

Tools: TweetLater alerts emailed hourly & scheduled tweets.

Time: 30-60 minutes most days

4 – Social Networking

Role:

• Develop a strong international business network
• Identify good referral sources for my business
• Fundamental activity for developing my business.

Tools: Commenting on other blogs, engaging in conversations, the phone & Skype

Time: 15-60 minutes most days

5 – Social Bookmarking

Role:

• Collect useful resources for my personal blog
• Deepen actions in social networking
• Strengthen my online presence and visibility
• Find appropriate communities to establish social proof

6 – LinkedIn

Role:

• To be present in a favorite networking hangout for some of my readers
  

Tools: Nothing extra right now, but soon to use the SlideShare application on LinkedIn

Time: 5 minutes most days

These are my favourite ones. There are many more like facebook, myspace, orkut etc etc etc... but i prefer these 6