Yesterday I wrote about the 5 things you should consider when you start using new media to market your business or your career. Well and good, but this blog isn’t so much about getting started as it is about effective strategies to raise your personal and professional visibility and influence. So I thought I would create a second list: 5 strategies that will help you reach and motivate your target audience – be they clients, fellow-members, or general citizens.

1. Have something specific to say, to a specific audience. Something that is interesting. Something that is informative. Something that people will want to hear about. Something that people can’t hear about from anywhere else. AND, know who you want to say it to. Be specific about the people you want to reach. What other things do they read? What industry are they in? What decisions do they make? Where do they live and work?

This strategy is all about differentiation and targeting. You need to be different enough to be noticeable and noticed, so what you say and do needs to be distinct from everybody else that is writing and talking about this same topic. You can take a contrarian view on the topic, or you can focus on a specialized subdiscipline that everyone else has ignored, or you can talk about an new and emerging approach to a old discipline. Any of those will help differentiate you. As for targeting, I’ve mentioned before that targeting the whole world is ineffective. The more specific you are about who you want to reach with your efforts, the better you will be able to find them, meet their needs, and motivate them.

2. Be passionate. It’s not enough to be interesting. You need to feel a passion for what you are writing about. You should burn with a passion that will drive you to keep motivated in the face of adversity and the seeming indifference of the world. A passion that will help you overcome the dread of having to write yet another in a seemingly endless series of blog posts. A passion that carries over into your writing and infects your reader with your enthusiasm.

Is passion a strategy? Most definitely. Choosing to follow a path you feel passionate about is a strategic choice.

3. Do it as a “public service.” I’ve written in Fun With Networking about the Power of the Idea, of getting involved in something larger than yourself. Find an idea that energizes people and enlists them changing the world for the better, and you will have people fighting to help your cause. Mind you, it doesn’t have to be a great social cause, like eliminating world hunger or saving the whales. It can be about finding a better way to work, or a better way to work part-time, or a better way to manage software development projects.

Remember that what you are doing with social media is creating a community, and if you can find a common cause that unites your community, then there will be no stopping you. And, note, this strategy means that your social media network is no longer about you and your needs but rather about the community and its larger cause. If you do it right, you do well by doing good.  Plus, remember what I said about passion.  Find something you and your soon-to-be-growing community can feel passionate about.

4. Find an unmet information need. There are vast numbers of people in this world looking for answers to all sorts of questions. If you have an expertise that can help answer some of these unanswered questions, then the world will beat a path to your door. My Fun With Networking calendar, for example, got started because I couldn’t find a good, centralized source for information on networking events and groups in the Philadelphia area.

Naturally, you will want to pick a topic that showcases your expertise and allows you to build a reputation as the go-to person on the topic.

5. Read and respond to others. This is social media we are talking about, and what you are doing is carrying on a conversation with your readers and with others who have similar blogs and social media profiles. Engage them in a discussion by reading and commenting on their sites. Some people have suggested that you post 3 comments on other blogs and profiles for every posting to your own blog.

Well, this is by no means an exhausting list, but I think it’s a start. In the future, we’ll explore some of these ideas, and others, in more detail.