Do You Like Me? Check Yes or No
1. Create a list of specific goals you have for your social media presence, tailored to your needs and what you have learned so far about what works and doesn’t work with your topic area.
2. Decide what metrics you will be collecting about your blog/social media presence that will measure progress toward those views, using the readings for guidance. Make a specific list or spreadsheet. Begin collecting this info on a regular basis.
3. Create some kind of challenge for yourself and describe it on your journal blog. Maybe you will try to post a photo on Instagram every day. Maybe you will try a “30 days of blogging” challenge, or similar. Maybe you will try to write a post at least once a week. It’s up to you, but the first step in boosting your metrics is learning to create a regular stream of content.
Metrics. Measurement. The Numbers. The Scores. The Who’s Who proof that we all seek to obtain. These are the things that a media maven’s online life depends upon and thus, I suppose I will have to start making sure my metrics are towing the line.
I’ve always wanted to be famous. Popular. Someone Important. Anyone, really. Just as long as everyone knew my name. At age 6, my parent’s friends would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answer was always the same: “I want to rule the world.” I may have grown up, changed, and become cynical but deep down the answer remains. I’m just a girl who wants to rule the world. My parents were so very pleased (yes…that’s sarcasm) that Madonna was my idol and I dressed in lace and mini skirts, followed by pointy bras each year for Halloween from the age of 6 to 13. What can I say – I’m a believer in finding a costume that works and sticking with it. So much for my originality. I guess my personality was original enough though.
Today, my idol has changed. Yes…breathe that deep sigh of relief. My idol is someone who should be respected – not for the clothes he wears or the songs he sings, but for his passion, his beliefs, his courage, and his dedication. So, yes. I still want to rule the world. Although now, my dream doesn’t involve twerkin’ it to the top, it involves activism and continuing the fight for liberty and freedom. In order to grow my career and secure a position working within the liberty movement, I have to make sure my social media presence is one that shows knowledge, passion, education, self-control, personality, the ability to unite and connect, and consistency.
From now on, I must begin making realistic goals for my social media presence and measuring them with….consistency. There’s that word again and as you read on, you will see it a few more times. I have extensive knowledge in the How-To section of Social Media and Social Networking but have only showed consistency when it came to my personal branding on Facebook. It’s time that I shared my passion with the other networks with the same….consistency.
My Goals:
1. To become an active and consistent Twitter user.
2. To increase my number of Twitter followers.
3. To balance my followers to my following on Twitter. (Every time I say or type “Following” – all I think of is the Joe Carroll cult on the FOX show “The Following” and it creeps me out)
4. To actively read tweets from Liberty-Minded and digital media professionals in order to remain current on topics pertaining to those fields, to promote myself, and to encourage engagement. In order to be noticed as someone knowledgeable and serious about these topics, I must make myself known on a consistent and professional basis.
5. To increase the number of Retweets that I receive on Twitter.
6. To increase the number of followers on both my personal blog (this one) and my tn liberty blog.
7. To increase the engagement level of my followers on both blogs. Currently, I can tell that people are following me through Twitter, my Facebook Page, and on both blogs but no one is leaving comments. This is frustrating and I hope to figure out a way to remedy this situation. However, I have noticed for years that the liberty-minded typically don’t leave comments or engage unless they want to argue. So, it may be better to let “sleeping dogs lie.”
8. To use Foursquare & Yelp with more consistency. I find that I always “remember” people who appear often on my Foursquare notifications. They seem to be people always in the know – the ones who have the best patio tables on sunny Saturday afternoons and have already tried the new restaurant or hotspot in town. This used to be me, before the days of grad school and prior to that, the days of traveling the state for weeks at a time. I have become accustomed to staying home more often but do go to these places occasionally. However, when I do, I forget to check-in, leave a tip for others, or write a review. It’s time I changed that.
9. To continue to provide a unique point of view for my audience on both blogs, Twitter, and my Facebook page. I bring something to the table that many who are currently active on social media and in the liberty movement do not – experience organizing and training youth YAL and SFL groups and garnering new support for these groups, candidates, and the movement.
10. To continue to increase my Klout score. This positions me as an expert in my field and although I already have a medium high score on Klout, I would theoretically like it to move to the high 70s at a minimum. Currently, I have a 64. In this SocialJ7330 class, only Burton Bridges and Carrie Brown have higher scores with a 65 and a 71 respectively. Other “celebretarians” in my network have scores in the upper 70s to upper 80s.
11. Finally, for my personal brand – I want to make sure that I show another facet of my personality. I love liberty, freedom, the Constitution, and Ron Paul but that is NOT all of who I am. I love television, media studies, event planning, traveling, being a foodie, seeing and being seen, fashion, Tiger Basketball, the organic lifestyle, whitewater kayaking, animal rescue, and babysitting my best friend’s 7 yr old boy and that involves knowing some awesome spots in the city for afternoons without mom. It’s time I began writing stuff on this blog about these topics as well. I want to show that I am unique and bring a multifaceted personality to every table.
How I am Going to Do This:
1. By working to increase my social media presence in general, my followers should increase as will the attention paid to my blogs. This will happen through making a consistent and focused effort to open Twitter every single day and adding new posts to both blogs at least 2-3 times per week. I would also like to continue the Photo365 Challenge for the entire 365 days as it seems to have helped me gain a good number of followers on my personal blog. (See challenge below),
2. I will spend some time using http://tweepdash.com/ in order to clear out some of those erroneous people that I have collected and followed on Twitter, over the years. This should help me balance my Twitter follower/following numbers, especially if I am able to increase the number of Twitter followers through my other strategies.
3. Increasing the number of Retweets that I receive on Twitter should come fairly easily when I begin to use Twitter consistently, read more posts on issues pertaining to my aforementioned topics, and begin to write more original tweets.
4. I also want to spend some time with http://www.Hashtagify.com, http://www.tweetlevel.com, and http://www.topsy.com as well as http://www.followerwork.com, http://www.tweeple.com, http://www.Twitonomy.com, http://www.tweept.com and http://www.FriendorFollow.com to see if I am missing any influential Twitter users in my following list. Once I am able to spend some time using these free Twitter metrics tools, I will be able to narrow down the list to just the ones that are most helpful.
5. I will also start to use http://www.Followerwonk.com and http://www.Topsy.com in addition to http://www.Klout.com to make sure that I am and continue to be positioned as an expert in the liberty movement, tn liberty, and digital media.
6. Next, in order to make sure that my messaging is reaching people beyond my current following on Twitter and thus, helping me gain new followers for Twitter and my blogs, I will use http://www.Tweetreach.com and http://www.twtrland.com.
7. I will also use the Google Analytics, Google Alerts, and the WordPress.com Stats to keep watch on my metrics such as acquisition, engagement, reach, growth, CTRs, and new followers. By watching these stats on my blog, I can figure out where the traffic is coming from – Google, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I can also make sure that my reach is hitting the numbers that it needs to on Twitter and Facebook so that It can help the blogs grow.
8. Finally, I will be making a concerted effort to use Klout on a daily basis, along with Twitter, Foursquare, and of course, Facebook. I also hope to begin writing a review for Yelp at least once a week – I don’t want to get too crazy here and theoretically, I would like to begin posting numerous stories to my tn liberty blog on a daily basis. First, I am going to spend a few days finishing the site and making sure that all important information has been added and is correct.
I am also going to need a lot more time. I have the passion and the content but the time is my only limitation. There is just not enough of it in my life. I have heard some say that if you want to be a hugely popular blogger, you’d almost have to quit your day job and spend all of your time, blogging. From my experience, this is pretty much true. Before grad school, I used a good number of hours during the day focusing on my networking and social media presence. Now, there just isn’t enough time to even say hello to family. So…many of these things will have to wait. However, I feel that I have increased the avenues by which I can connect to people and have some good ideas for forthcoming content. One day I’ll blog by the beach. One day….just not today.
Challenge:
1. To continue the Photo365 Challenge for at least through 365 days
2. To open Twitter at least once every single day for 30 minutes, retweet influential people, and write at least 2 original tweets on both of my aforementioned topics.
3. To open Klout each day and share stories from within it’s system to help increase my score
4. To write at least one short review a week on Yelp and REMEMBER to check-in on Yelp and Foursquare consistently.
5. Eventually, after this semester of grad school, I would like to post at least 2 stories a day to tn liberty.
As part of my personal branding strategy, over two years ago I created a Facebook page called Tennessee and Mississippi Leadership in order to have a more consolidated way to share information relevant to the Liberty movement in Tennessee and Mississippi. Since then, I have shared at least 2 pieces of relevant information each day – sometimes a lot more– in order to maintain a constant flow of information and engagement with my audience. By monitoring this page’s metrics, I know that I have a decent reach and engagement as well as a supportive audience. However, my audience isn’t one that comments on posts unless it is to argue with me or another person. So, for the liberty-minded, it seems that sharing and reach are the metrics I should continually monitor. I can also tell that a good number of my blog audience has come from publicizing my posts on Facebook and on my Facebook Page(s).
In addition to that page, I am also the admin for the Young Americans for Liberty at Memphis Page, the Shelby County for Ron Paul Page, the Tennesseans for Liberty of Shelby County Page, and one of the admins for the Libertarian Party of Tennessee Page and the Campaign for Liberty –Shelby County Page. Although, I used to have time to constantly update and monitor these pages as well as the many groups I am an admin of, admittedly I have just not had the time to keep up lately. In the future, I would like to work on my reach and engagement through sharing a bit more as well as continuously post relevant information on my Tennessee and Mississippi Leadership Page.
The World According to Robin 