Social Media Engagement For Dummies

Chapter 6

Creating Connections

In This Chapter

Defining your short- and long-term goals

Pinpointing your audience and how they behave online

Giving your audience the floor

Motivating the exchange of ideas between you and your audience

In this chapter, we tackle the importance of making contacts and connections as part of your social media engagement (SME). With each new connection, you inch closer to reaching the place where you belong in this space. You want to be a part of the online community, not merely a company that people watch from afar, and you want your connections to produce truly positive outcomes.

The book you’re holding in your hands is one of many positive outcomes resulting from engaging in social media. Our own online connections and conversations on Twitter and Facebook led first to in-person meetings and then to our first joint book deal for Mom, Incorporated: A Guide to Business + Baby. If we weren’t active in social networks — cultivating real connections and building genuine relationships — this book deal (our second) would have never happened.

With every new ...