One very interesting piece of information was given today at our 4Sight on Social Media and PR. Part of promoting a group meeting is to regularly post on the 4N Forum. This is a superb free resource that should be used with gusto, as it gives direct access to all 4N members, as long as they can be bothered to regularly enter the 4N website and check it out.
Anyhow, one particular element that is provided with the forum is generally overlooked. This is the sharing buttons at the top of a thread to get more exposure to the topic provided.
I know this picture is small, but if you look below Brad’s yellow banner advertising his kindle book, and above the ‘subscribe to this topic’ link, there are four social media platforms you can share this thread with.
It seems that they are obvious only to those ‘in the know’. I had to have them pointed out to me to notice them. They allow the reader to share this forum topic on the social media platform of their choice, thus exposing it to a larger audience and revealing to the wider world the merits of 4N and how it works.
Let’s choose a button. How about the Facebook Share – when you click on it you should get the sharing menu like this:
After you’ve written an encouraging accompaniment to advertise it in the status update, selected a suitable image from what is on offer, and chosen the most appropriate destination (timeline, page, group or whatever), click on the ‘Share link’ button and then go into Facebook to examine the result!
Select the Twitter button and you’ll get this:
This can be edited before tweeting, and you’ll see I’ve doctored it to include my own hashtag and 4N Reading’s twitter handle before it goes out, all necessary for monitoring as well as publicity purposes. After clicking on the ‘Tweet’ button, go in and check if it’s OK (an excuse for being nosy!)
Oh, and don’t forget to include a comment on the forum thread itself, as plenty of activity will keep it higher in the popularity stakes, and therefore more likely to be noticed, read and commented upon. After all, if this sharing scheme works, and a new audience does succumb and decide to visit, they will need to have something worthwhile to read!
(PS Why not be fantastic and do the same thing with this blog’s social media sharing buttons – it’s all part of interacting and being sociable, which online networking is all about!)
great advice Alice
Fantastic Alice, thanks
Alice, Great to see you are using the advice so well & promoting to other 4Ners lets hope everyone that reads this follows the very simple instructions