There’s only one reason for a businessperson to use Social Media and that’s to grow revenues. Seriously, that’s the one and only reason businesspeople should give Social Media an ounce of their attention. The problem is, Social Media tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube can be distracting as all get-out.

It's easy to get distracted by social media. You can improve the efficiency of your efforts by using the 60 Second Marketer Social Media Management Principle.

What’s the solution?

That’s the question I was pondering yesterday in a conversation with Ann Pruitt, who helps run the 60 Second Markter. Ann and I were talking about the various ways we’re using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to build awareness and traffic to the 60 Second Marketer site.

The problem is that when you dip your toe into Social Media, it can distract you and take you away from your primary task — to grow revenues. And that’s when it hit me — Social Media is both an Attraction and a Distraction and depending on how you use it, it can grow your business or shrink it.

I’m a visual person. Anybody who has been in my office will find yellow stickies, white boards and print-outs all over my walls. They help remind me of things to keep on my radar screen and, most importantly, they keep me focused on the key tasks at hand.

So, taking a page from Rajesh Setty‘s 60 Second Marketer post last week and the book The Back of a Napkin, I drew up the 60 Second Marketer Social Media Management Principle and have included it with this post.

The key thing to remember as a marketing director or as a business person is that there’s only one reason you should be using social media for work and that’s to grow revenues. With that in mind, we broke Social Media into two categories: things that should attract you and things that will distract you.

When using Social Media, follow the links that are related to:

• Making money
• Growing market share
• Retaining customers
• Building visibility

When using Social Media, don’t follow the links related to:

• Fun and games
• Friends and family
• Sports and hobbies
• Unrelated activities

For me, it’s helpful to keep the napkin in this post taped to my wall. That way, any time I find myself reading a Tweet that leads me to an article on Astronomy (one of my favorite topics), I can stop myself and say “Is this an attraction? Or is this a distraction?”

If it’s a distraction, it waits until I get home. After all, we’re still trying to grow the 60 Second Marketer and that’s our #1 task right now.

Do you have any “back of the napkin” ideas you’d like to share with our online community? If so, send them our way with a short description and we’ll give you a guest blogger post on the 60 Second Marketer.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009, 3:54 pm   |   Social Media  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback