Social media for business is in full swing, yet you may still have tons of questions about how to make it work for your business. Can you really create a meaningful following on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and the others? With a bit of social media training from someone who has paved the way you can.

Laura Roeder

Social Media Trainer, Laura Roeder built a successful business in less than a year mostly from her Twitter following. She shares her story of how she “fired” her web design clients to go in a new direction in her business. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do, but she knew she wanted to be involved in social media.

Laura understood the value of offering useful information to those around her. With her old website still in place, the one she used for her former web design business, she started to send out messages to her followers on Twitter about her free social media newsletter.

Laura gave immediate value to her Twitter followers. In a short time, people began to respond and sign up for her tips and training.

Many business owners are effectively using social media to do all kinds of things from new product announcements to creating a whole new online community.

How to Get Started

The question is: How do you get started ? The first time I logged in to Twitter I was lost. It seems that writing a 140 character message is simple; however, there are many things to consider before just launching those mini-messages into the world. I looked around to find some tips and training and remember the day I found a program about creating raving fans. I followed the Twitter link, like a yellow brick road, to the website of Laura Roeder. I found what I was looking for and immediately signed up to get her free weekly newsletter called The Dash.

It’s evident from reading the first few words of any edition of The Dash that Laura gets it. She skips the fluff and filler and goes straight to giving you the goods you can use right now to move your business along.

Here’s What You Get

Here’s what I found this week in the first few seconds of reading The Dash:

Laura asks: “Do you want to know which service providers I choose to run my online business? Click here for a directory of everything I use.”

I clicked the link and found a real list of services from email marketing to outsourcing.” While you may not need or use the products or services on the list, it gives you an idea of what it takes to run and online business and some of the resources necessary to do it well.

That’s only a small fraction of what I’ve learned from the free newsletter and there’s much more. For example, I’ve never been drawn to video, but Laura makes it look so easy that it has become a serious consideration.

Standing on the sidelines of anything that you want to do and thinking about how to make it happen won’t work. If you want to know more about social media, you have to get in the water and wade around a bit. But, once you’re serious, don’t spend too much time trying to figure it out. Find a good resource, learn from someone who is doing it well, get in the game, and watch the results. Laura Roeder has blazed a pretty good trail and you are invited to follow.