The Procrastinator’s Guide to Online Marketing

I’ve been presenting a talk for a few months now called “Social Media Marketing in 15 Minutes a Day.” It’s fun; I’d like to think it’s informative. People seem to like it.

But there’s an interesting phenomena that happens every time I’ve presented. I get emails and phone calls from people saying, “I can’t make it to your talk, but would you let me know when you’re doing it again?”

One or two people have done this twice.

To which I say, if not now, then when?

Now, I’m not the only person who teaches this stuff. You can Google “social media marketing” and easily get several million hits. There’s lots of good stuff out there that will teach you how to blog, tweet, and Facebook with the best of them.

But you gotta start in order to get good. So, to get you started, I present: 

The Procrastinator’s Guide to Social Media Marketing.

1. Decide why you’re going to use social media for your business. Do you want to promote your book? Get booked as a speaker? Set some objectives. If you don’t have a reason to do social media, maybe you shouldn’t bother.

2. If you do have a good reason, then Just start. Read a blog on social media marketing. (Hey, read this blog!) Watch some videos on YouTube. Go to a class. Come to my presentation when I give it again.

3. Then, pick one social media site and create a profile. Work on getting really good at that one site. I’d suggest starting with Twitter. It’s only 140 characters at a time. Very low pressure!

4. Spend 15 minutes a day tweeting. To really save time, use Hootsuite to schedule your tweets throughout the day.

5. Follow interesting people in your field. Respond to questions, ask questions, converse. Have fun.

There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?