Recently I’ve been refining my social media presence online. In this process, I developed a marketing plan which involves incorporating social media to increase my credibility and web presence. I look forward to seeing the effects of my efforts over the next several months!
In the meantime, here is how I’ve incorporated each of the tools:
You can’t have a social media marketing plan without incorporating the biggest social media tool there is. I created a fan page to share my latest blog posts and other social media resources. Overall, the Facebook page is a way for me to stay connected with clients, colleagues, and friends who are familiar with my work and want more. Furthermore, I get to use it to explore the capabilities of Facebook pages and how to integrate that with my WordPress blog and any of the following.
Twitter is a fun tool. I usually have short thoughts about my explorations in my field and this is an outlet for those thoughts and revelations. When I look back at my posts it reminds me how much I’ve grown professionally. I think it’s a great way for people to get a quick glance at my thoughts in the field.
I wasn’t entirely sold on LinkedIn. I didn’t think it was a very designer friendly resource. I even considered different options like Zerply, but LinkedIn has an amazing network…even for designers, which I was surprised to find. The AIGA group has almost 70,000 members! So ultimately I kept it to showcase my work and take advantage of the super awesome endorse feature that my designer friends and colleagues have used.
Behance
This was another hard sell for me. I first obtained the profile when I was going through my portfolio semester in college, but hadn’t done anything with it over the past 2 years. But once I started posting some of my portfolio pieces I immediately food an increase in my site traffic and even received a little boost in my artistic ego from people appreciating my work. Double win!
I use Pinterest to mark the work I find inspiring on the web. I had an illustration teacher in college who, at the time (this was BP – before Pinterest) kept all his inspiration in a folder on his computer. How space consuming! And to keep track of all the original resources or credits? Very challenging. With Pinterest it’s all taken care of with the click of a button. It’s not without it’s flaws, one being once the content is removed from the web so is your photo, but with how much I post I rarely notice anything missing. And because I post so much it makes referencing it when I need that dose of inspiration at work a condensed shot of everything I need to get the creativity flowing. Long story short, this is definitely my favorite tool and I am willing to advocate on behalf of Pinterest to anyone who wants to have the conversation (and sometimes for people who don’t – like my Tumblr blogging friends).
I haven’t used Instagram to the fullest of its capabilities, but when I do have some extra time I like playing with the photography options. Usually I take a photo in Hipstamatic, then bring it into Instagram and apply filters if I think it looks great. Instagram is an opportunity for me to explore photography before I buy a real camera. iPhones aren’t the greatest for tweaking depth, f-stops, and all that fancy schmancy stuff that dSLRs can do, but by playing with perspective and filters (moreso through Hipstamatic) I’m taking the first step toward increasing my photographic skills.
Delicious
Oh this is such an old tool, and I realize not many people use it anymore, but I don’t really use this tool for social sharing as much as I use it for keeping information in the cloud. Nevertheless, it is a social media tool and is worth mentioning. Mostly this information is for me to keep my bookmarked blog entries (the ones that I may look for and reference in the future). Extra perk, I found a WordPress plugin to fit it on my website!
Dribbble
And finally, good ol’ Dribbble. The social media tool I covet the most. Still looking for an invite to share portfolio pieces, but I’m hopeful that one day it will come around. I’ve got more than my fair share to keep me busy, but I certainly have room for this guy in my lineup. In the meantime, I will use it to browse other great work out there.
Do you have a social media marketing plan? What tools do you use?
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