5 Finger Social Media Learning
Newly Updated September 25, 2016 – We all know how important Social Media is and we all know that it HAS to be a part of your blog or business marketing game plan.
What I want to talk about is people trying to over complicate or over learn what social media is and how to use it.
Social Media at it’s core is very simple..you share and get shared and talk to people and you do that on a regular basis.. there you go… you are now a Social Media expert!
So wanting to write something to help you understand SM easily, I was thinking of a way to explain it as I was staring at my hand when…EUREKA!
Your Hand John?…It’s a good a place as any for a post idea…Right? 
What came to me was how you can learn all you need about Social media in only 5 Fingers.
Yep..that’s right! ALL you need to know about SM is sitting there in the palm of your hand. If you need more help, look to my social media consulting page.
5 Fingers To Social Media Learning
Index Finger – Know Your Goals
Your Index finger is your pointer, your directional, your number 1 finger.
With Social Media, the number one thing you need to do is decide what your focus, your goals are that you want out of your social media efforts.
Do you want traffic to your blog?
Do you want more customers to your local business?
Do you want to build a list?
Are you using it for customer service center to your customers?
You can use social media for all the above, but they all take a little different approach.
Once you decide what you want, then you need to stay focused on that path.
Middle Finger – Share The Love
Your Middle finger is your “Love” finger ? this is where you share and engage.
With Social Media it is all about sharing, then engaging people with what you shared or what they shared. Make comments, reply, add your take, make a joke about a share whatever, it doesn’t matter.. what matters is that you show that you are really there and there to talk and chat and your real.
If your share, then be available for whatever conversation comes from that share. Do not share and walk away, doing that is like being a door to door salesman that gets someone to finally answer the door then turns and walks away..silly right?
When you share without being there for what comes after, then you are the salesman walking away from a open door.
Ring Finger – Build Your Community
Your Ring finger is where you start a marriage and a family.
With Social Media learning, this becomes where you build that community. Where you build off the sharing and conversation you do with your middle finger.
Building a community on social media, isn’t something that happens over night.. but if you stay consistent, you will slowly build a nice following.
Building a community comes down to being a resource for great tweets you share, or a resource people know they can go to for help.
Once people realize you share great stuff and that you are always available to chat and always willing to help then that’s when you will see your social media community grow.
Pinky Finger – Share You Share Yours
The Pinky finger is the smallest and the flashy finger.
With Social Media this is where you share you, you share your blog posts, your articles, your affiliate links. When it comes to sharing your stuff, you should always keep it to a minimum.
This is where “ Less is More”
If you start to share more you then you share others, you will slowly become the guy/girl that is either a spammer or all about themselves, two things are a fast track to social media death.
The pinky is also the flashy finger… think old Italian dude with his gold chains open shirt hairy chest and……. Big ole pinky ring
This is where you share your, share your personality, share more about you. You want to keep your personal sharing to a minimum, but you need to share you. People connect with people they know or trust.. well the fastest way for people to know and trust you, is if you give them a little personal.
Thumb – Be Supportive and Helpful
The Thumb is what supports all your other fingers on your hand.
With Social Media you need to be helpful and supportive to your followers.This is where you bring all the hard work you did with your 4 other fingers all into a successful social media campaign.
The fastest way to reach all your blog or business goals with social media, is to be helpful and supportive to your followers needs and issues.
I hope that helps you understand Social Media a little better. SM is not hard or complicated, so stop making it hard.
Follow these tips and some common sense and you will start to see all the benefits from the time and effort you put into Social Media Learning and why every business in the world is moving to SM in a big way.
What you think? What can you add? Let me know in comments.
Funny analogy. I totally agree that work should be in the middle of the palm because any step and strategy in content marketing and social media means lots of work.
Comment by Alexandra Petean-Nicola — July 15, 2014 @ 5:38 am
Hi Paul,
First time to your site.
You are so right, people make social media way to hard. I network with some people who are highly connected in DC and are incredible networkers. But, they have real mindset issues around social media.
I just asked them; how do you network?
Their response was:
1. We know the people we want to refer well because we talk often
2. We understand what they do because they make it simple
3. We work to bring value to our prospects and clients
4. We proactively find ways to share them with our own prospects and clients
I asked them if they ever make email introductions as well? They said; of course.
My response; sounds like you’re already doing social media. You’re making it harder than it really is. The principles are the same. The only difference is that you’re in front of a monitor.
You’re illustration is perfect. I do believe the key is engagement and sharing out other people’s work who deserve it. When you do this for influencers enough, they will start doing it for you.
Great post Paul. I’ll be sharing it around as well!!!!
Sincerely,
Don Purdum
Comment by UnveiltheWeb — July 16, 2014 @ 9:58 am
Cool steps! Very strategic. New found techniques in a much easier way to learn social media. Easy to understand and enjoyable. You will always remember this everywhere you go, because you always bring with you these tips – YOUR FINGERS. Thank you for such an amazing piece of advice, John.
Comment by Catherine Jules — August 3, 2014 @ 11:00 pm