You have just taken a 3 hour workshop and now you are a social media expert. Good luck with that. Social media takes time to learn and get good at it. Don’t be fooled by people who say it’s easy. Using social media for business is work. Here’s why.

If you were going to use social media for fun, you could go about it anyway you wanted. But when it comes to using it for business, here are a few things to consider:

  1. Helping customers understand what you do – you unique selling proposition – as a business, you need to help future customers know how what they can expect from you.
  2. Creating visibility for your business in areas you have not been visible before – marketing is creating visibility – as a business, you need to know how to create visibility.
  3. Creating relationships that will help spread the word about your business – businesses need to help customers feel a connection to their business; after all, people like to do business with people they like.
  4. Getting good at using social media – it’s very clunky at the first since social media might be very new to you. You were not born with a smart phone in your hand.

To help businesses understand how to get started using Twitter, I wrote a 268 page eBook on Twitter entitled “Essential Twitter Skills for Business“. Now I am using that eBook to teach my social media workshop program participants how to use Twitter for business and to help them learn how to build a great Twitter community around them.

You might be thinking that Twitter is a white box with 140 characters, and a tweet button. How hard can it be you ask? It is traditionally one of the hardest social networks to understand. It takes a while to understand and get good at Twitter. And then there’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and others to learn. And you want to take it all in 3 hours?

Social media can also be compared to learning how to drive a car. The more you drive a car, the better you get. Now there will always be the unexpected, but you will navigate those hurdles with your previous experience. It is the same with social media. It takes time to get good at using social media.

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When my daughter wanted to learn to drive, I sent her to Young Drivers of Canada. She needed to get the right driving skills down before I sent her out to drive on her own. You need some training like that with social media as well. You need to learn, try, learn and try some more. A longer program would be ideal for learning social media. As a Workplace Education trainer, I deliver a 40 hour social media program over 11 weeks. This is a great way to learn. My friend Mike Parker says it best:

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So make sure you plan for success and not failure with your social media. Great training can produce great results. Any questions about training for your business? Please ask me.

So here’s to a great day in business.