In my Social Media 490 class, we were assigned to read ROI: Return On Influence and The Tao of Twitter. Both of these books are authored by Mark Schaefer.
Mark is a Social Media Guru, college professor, author, speaker, and consultant. If you haven’t read either of these books or his blog {grow}, you need to get on it. Since I was introduced to his works, my mind has been open to a whole new world of social media.
However I feel it is important to point out that I am no social media rookie. I am the proud owner of a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Youtube among other social media platforms.
Even though I have all of these platforms, I had no idea how to use it properly. I was using all my social media sites for minimal day-to-day interactions; while I should be using a few like, Twitter, to help me for the future.
One of the takeaways for me was how Mark goes into setting up your Twitter. He talks about keeping your profiles unlocked. This allows for more connections to be made.
“Follow” your friends but then also follow bigger influencers in your field. They give you helpful links and could be a potential business connection. He gave personal examples of this and I loved it!
He also encourages you to build up “your tribe” by following people back. That is until you can afford to “unfollow” those who won’t be a helpful connection. As you can see I have adopted these practices.
I have unlocked my profile and started following back my current followers and connecting with industry professionals. I have also linked my profile to my blog.
Twitter has definitely gotten more interesting. I can’t wait to see what my growing “tribe” will have in store for me. Through my readings of The Tao of Twitter, I have seen through Mark’s and his tribe’s experiences, how powerful it is. It has been a long time since I have read a book this fast. It was so interesting and i can’t wait to see if I’m blessed with the tao of twitter like them.
As if I wasn’t already super pumped about my epiphany of Twitter and its power, Mark lives in Knoxville!
My Social Media 490 class had the pleasure of hosting Mark as a guest lecturer Thursday.
He gave us a sneak peek into the theories of his new book. Even told Dr. Childers to “Twitter down” on multiple occasions to make sure she wasn’t tweeting his secrets.
One of his points I was most interested in was that “content is power”. He went into how much power you have with the ability to create content that will move essentially. Whether that is your blog link being retweeted on Twitter or industry professionals quoting your blog. Truthfully, I have been struggling with what to put on my blog. What should I write about? And who cares enough to read it?
Mark said that for a beginner blogger, you should write what you are passionate about. He actually used me as an example. He turned my love of sports into my love of Bass Fishing, which I have never done in my life (haha). He said if you were interested in Bass Fishing to be that person that Bass Fishing pros and Bass Pro for example would want to follow.
I don’t know what my blog is going to be about in the future, but I am going to use this semester as a test run. I hope that this requirement turns into a passion and according to Mark my future career depends on it. This blog post of his I found particularly helpful: The truth behind why my blog sucked for two years
Ashton Rummage 