Social Media Strategy, Training & Management for Small Business
Purpose – Persistence – Presence
Do you make New Year’s resolutions or set yearly goals? I used to make a list of resolutions, but then found that choosing a 3-word “theme” for the direction of the upcoming year worked out better for me. It serves more as a guideline as I work on monthly or quarterly goals (plus, I don’t have the guilt that comes with breaking resolutions anymore!)
Continue reading “Yearly Goals, Resolutions and Themes – Here are Mine”
Are your kids on summer vacation yet? I’d like to say there has been an official “start” to summer in my house, but it’s really been more of a revolving door. With two of my daughters in college and my youngest in high school, we operate on numerous summer schedules.
Colleges finish the end of April here (my oldest actually graduated on May 4th), while high school ends the first week of June. So, as a work at home mom, I’ve been dealing with a summer schedule since May. This means It’s been a challenge to stay focused on business activities for the past month. No matter how old your kids are, when they are home with you, you face time management challenges!
Now that my middle daughter is headed back to college for summer classes and my youngest has started her volunteer work (which means she’s on a semi-regular activity schedule), I feel like I can get back to a more normal schedule!
For any work at home parent, the summer months can be a time of slower business activity if we don’t stay focused. Even though my kids are older now, I still deal with distractions and interruptions. So here are a few summer tips I’ve used over the years to keep a focus on business.
Learn to become a Night Owl or an Early Bird (if you weren’t already). When are the quiet times in your household? After you put your younger children to bed? Early in the morning before your teenagers wake up? Take advantage of those quiet hours and make adjustments to your normal routine if necessary.
Keep special activities or toys in your office that are only taken out when your kids are “working” in the office with you. When my girls were younger I’d keep special pencils, markers, stickers, paper and folders in my office area so they could work with me. I still have some of those decorated folders today and looking at them stirs up a few memories and laughs with my kids.
Swap playdates with other parents or family members. Make arrangements with neighbors, friends or family members to take turns hosting a weekly playdate. That will give each of you a few hours to focus on business with the kids out of the house.
Of course, sending your kids to summer camps and daily events will give you some quiet time in your home office. But I sometimes found summer camps even more exhausting than a regular school schedule when each kid was in a different camp, on a different schedule and I still had to drive them back and forth!
The bottom line for work at home parents and summer home office hours – get creative! Know up front that consistent, business-related focus is going to be a challenge. Put some strategies in place with that in mind and practice being more flexible with your own schedule.
With only one of my daughters home full-time during the next few months of summer (and since she’s 17, she has her own transportation and social schedule), I don’t face as many challenges to stay focused on my business as I once did. Now, some of the biggest interruptions come from our 3 cats, who make it clear when they want attention. And guess what? I hide a few special cat toys in my office to keep them busy too!
There are a number of reasons you want to build a positive Personal Brand online: you are looking for a job, starting a business, trying to grow a business…and it’s very common for potential employers, recruiters or potential customers to do a Google Search to learn more about you.
Have you ever done a Google Search for your own name? Do you know which social media profiles (or photos) rank the highest? The results may not always produce an ideal first impression when colleagues, potential employers or clients do a search on your name.
Your online personal brand is important, no matter what your current career status. So make sure you monitor your search results and corresponding social media profiles. Here are 6 steps for using social media to build your personal brand.
When you Google your name, take note of which sites show up on the first page. Then make sure those are the sites that you focus on when “cleaning up” your online image. Also take note of any images that show up in Google Search – you may need to adjust the privacy settings on Facebook and other sites if you are not happy with the images that appear.
If you discover some unfavorable results, develop a plan to get more positive material online: start a blog (in your name), set up profiles on sites like LinkedIn and Twitter that usually have high search results. If you don’t have a Google Plus personal site, you may want to set one up and start “blogging” there: you can create longer posts in Google Plus and your Google Plus profile shows up high in search results.
You can take several quick steps that will let you know how others are talking about you online.
If you can get the domain for your name as it appears on all other social sites, I recommend you grab it! (For example, I purchased TerryLeague.com long before I started my personal blog since that was how I planned on setting up all of my social media profiles.) If you can’t get it exactly as you want, then get a domain as close to your name as possible and make sure you place your full name on pages and in tags on the site.
I recommend using WordPress.org to set up a self-hosted blog on your domain.
Choose several social media sites that match your goals and then make sure you complete your profiles. Don’t leave a profile half-finished…this profile is your first impression online and you want to present the right one!
Also make sure to delete any profiles on social media sites where you are no longer engaged…if you are like me, it may take a little while to find all the profiles you set up a few years ago on every new social media site that popped up. But it’s worth it because empty, abandoned profiles don’t impress anyone.
Every social media site gives you space to create a “bio” or “about me”. Although some of these fields can be small (160 characters on Twitter), it is important to use keywords so your profile will show up in other users’ searches.
Your keywords should focus on your career interests, specialties and skills, as well as topics in your industry that you are blogging about or discussing online.
Use social media to assist with a job search, career change or even graduate school applications by connecting with the companies, schools and their top people. Which social networks do they spend time on? Set up a profile on those sites and start networking.
Follow these 6 steps, consistently add meaningful content to your social media networks and you’ll be building a positive personal brand in no time!
This week’s motivation is about planning and productivity in your home office – a good topic to start off the new year!
Do you make big plans, goals or resolutions every new year? I usually don’t do too well with a long list of resolutions…setting a few main goals is a better way for me to be successful in planning the new year.
I love the quote shown here because it really makes such a simple statement about productivity – but one that a lot of us probably struggle with. We all have days when we don’t feel productive in our home office and wonder where the day went; but we’d probably get more done if we had a better plan.
A few tips for planning:
1.Schedule every hour – If you have a long To-Do list, plan your day (hour by hour) instead of just waking up with a goal to “get it all done today”.
2. Get a few things done early – On days when you know family commitments will take you away from your home office, have a plan to get a few, short tasks completed early in the day so you won’t feel torn when family time starts.
3. Set up an accountability system – Share your plans or goals with a supportive friend, colleague or virtual group to help with accountability. You will be more likely to stick to a plan you’ve shared with others.
One example of how better planning has made a big difference in my home office is the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m taking part in the Challenge, which I’ve done 4-5 times now, and one thing I’ve learned is that participating in the challenge has made me a better planner.
Because the goal is to write 31 posts for the month, I know that the only way I can hope to complete the challenge is to plan my entire month of blogging. I choose topics, schedule publishing days, block out time for blogging every day and focus on only the writing during that time – no multi-tasking!
When I first started blogging, Ultimate Blog Challenge months were the only times I’d plan my blog posts for an entire month, (before that, I’d blog when I could fit it into my weekly schedule) …and guess what? Those Ultimate Blog Challenge months were the only ones when I blogged consistently!
Now I start every month with a blogging plan (editorial calendar), whether it is an Ultimate Bloging Challenge month or not (some months I don’t blog as often as others, but I still create a plan, choose my topics and schedule posts).
Taking the time to create a better plan for your home office, whether it’s for blogging or some other part of your business, pays off in the long run, when you are bound to see an increase in your productivity.
Have a great example of how better planning has made a difference in your home office? Share in a comment – I’d love to hear it!
Sign up for the Ultimate Blog Challenge – there’s no deadline, it’s free and I highly recommend it. Go to the website www.ultimateblogchallenge.com for details. *The Ultimate Blog Challenge months are January, April, July and October.*
The quote image was created using quozio.com – a great, free tool for creating and sharing quotes.
