There are plenty of reasons why social media will work, and an equal number of reasons for why it won't. A top contender for 'things to do' to get your social media presence off the ground and moving, is to be consistent in your efforts.

You can maintain this consistency by creating a 'social media roadmap', a plan that lets you build a route to achieving your end objectives, with stops along the way to identify and refine your current goals.
Here are four steps to create your social media roadmap.

1.    Find your ideal target audience. In an earlier post, I've show you  how easy it is to build a twitter audience -follow friends and family members, follow those who follow you etc. But to build a target audience of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to share is more difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. They key is to use social media tools like twitter's Advanced Search functionality to define and track your audience.

2.    Set your goals. A lot of businesses jump onto the social media bandwagon without defining their primary, secondary, and end objectives. The problem with this is that social media is like a large and fluctuating black hole which can suck you in and spit you out without missing a beat. Without a plan, you can spend hours of your valuable time on it, without getting anything in return.

3.    Integrate your efforts. Are you using social media in isolation? If so, you may not find it working well for you. Instead, use it in a related context - are you trying to connect with vendors? Push your new promotional campaign? Empower your team with an internal communication tool? Can you use facebook with your email marketing campaign? Can you use twitter to supplement your YouTube campaigns? Will you use all your social media tools to promote your blogs?

4.    Analyze the results. Use inbuilt tools that social channels like twitter, linked in or facebook use, or external tools like Hootsuite and Google analytics to analyze your results and measure your goals. Isolate and identify special key performance indicators, which you can then track and measure at given points.

Just like any marketing effort, using social media takes time to see results. But with consistency, a defined target audience, set goals and a regular measurement and analysis of your results, you can build an ongoing social media plan that works for you.

If you've decided that 2012 is the year to transition to a new career as a freelance writer, or to increase the amount of paid writing jobs you undertake, then as with any business, you need to set yourself marketing, financial, personal goals, and yes, even writing goals. Breaking into a new market is hard, more so when you compete on a global level. However, don't let that scare you. With determination, creativity, and bit of common sense ;) you can grow your business into a well-paying and profitable venture.

1. Get Serious: If you really want to start your own business, and this applies to any field, then you need to get serious about it. Freelance writing can be a very lucrative business, if you set your mind to it. The only way to run a successful business is by working hard - you need to invest, sometimes long hours, into building your online and offline reputation, into marketing your services, and into writing good if not excellent copy. Never written professionally before? Don't let that deter you. But do take the time to join some classes, read plenty of books on writing and copywriting, and seek out a professional writers association, which can provide you the support you need to get started.

2. Have realistic goals: Set yourself daily, weekly and monthly goals and stick to them. If you plan to make $200 a day, then you need to apply yourself to finding jobs that will pay you this money. You can do 2 articles and earn that money, or 3-4 blogs. It’s all achievable; depending on what you enjoy writing and where your skills lie. As you get better at what you do, increase your goals and your charges too.

3. Put a value to your time: Most of us pick a figure we feel comfortable with – say, $30 or $ 50 an hour, and we stick with it; irrespective of how long we’ve been writing. In fact, novice writers often forget their hourly value and charge low fees per project. Say you charge $ 50 per blog post, and it takes you 3 hours to research, write and revise it. You’re per hour rate has already fallen to 1/3 your value. Time is money and you need to invest in it wisely.

4. Don’t undersell yourself: This connects with the earlier point. Don’t reduce your worth or value, just to get a job. It’s always harder in the beginning to build a client base, but stick with it and you’ll see results. It’s never easy to command a higher amount from a client, once you’ve valued yourself at a very low figure. I've made that mistake, and I even lost the client when I asked to increase my rates. But because he understood he needed to pay for quality, we parted on good terms and he gave me an excellent recommendation. However, this does not always work. Once you create a fixed rates, clients expect to pay that amount. A sliding scale works better I find - don't be afraid to charge different rates for different projects. Or bill by the hour, providing the client with an estimate in advance so he knows how much he's expected to pay. Place a value on work that you feel comfortable with and don’t go below it.

5. Keep busy: If you are to make a decent living as a freelance writer, you need to be busy. One way to do this is to become a generalist and to take on a variety of jobs. Newsletters and blog posts can provide a steady stream of income. Web page writing can be lucrative, as can writing for larger publications such as magazines and newspapers. Another way to do this is to specialize. Become really good at one or two things and you’ll always be in demand.

And finally, as a BONUS point- always invest in excellent customer service. Say thank you to clients who’ve hired you, as well as those who’ve decided to give you a miss.Today, I work a lot off referrals and repeat projects, but in the the beginning, I had to bid on most of the projects I worked on. I've had clients reconsider dropped bids after they've received a thank you note wishing them all the best. Courtesy and manners pay. Go the extra mile- that’s what will put you way ahead of the competition.

What are some of the actions you've believed have helped you get ahead in your career?

While some sites might encourage you to 'buy' your twitter followers, this is like 'buying' an email database. You never know what you get landed with. Instead, try some of these time-consuming, but effective techniques to build your twitter base:

1.    Complete your profile: It takes minutes to complete and profile and add a photograph, but you are putting a face to a name and it instantly makes your account more 'real'.

2.    Promote your twitter name everywhere: Add them to your blog posts, your email signature, and your social media accounts.

3.    Mix up your tweets: If it's a business account, don't hesitate to add a bit of personal flavor to it. If you are an employee tweeting for your company, be careful as to what you tweet about, but it's still fun to add variety to your posts.

4.    Retweeting rocks! Use it to publicize tweets you find interesting and in return, you'll find others will begin to retweet your links. Believe you know it all? Here's a Retweet Guide that shows you just how much can be done with retweeting.

5.    Tweet during peak hours: Research shows that 9am-6pm, East/West Coast is the best time to tweet and especially between the lunch hours of 12pm-2pm. So try and schedule your tweets for these hours and you may find yourself getting more traffic. I use SocialOomph to schedule my posts, but I also find spontaneous tweeting can be fun and more engaging.

6.    Take it offline: Print your links on your business cards, on brochures, handouts and offer your twitter name (for this sake, ensure it's an easy handle) to contacts.

7.    Include images and videos: Images and videos get heavily retweeted so if you come across interesting content, or better yet, if you create it, then share it. It's fairly easy to upload images to twitter using a service like TwitPic. Here's an article on 'how to upload images to Twitter'.

8.    Search for influencers: Use twitter's Advance Search to find influencers and groups that you can relate to and begin to follow them and interact with them. If they like what you share, they make tweet it to their followers.

9.    Run a contest: Everyone loves a contest and you are assured of garnering audience interest if you fun one. Need to get inspired? Here are some twitter contests that drew in the crowds - http://mashable.com/2011/07/06/twitter-campaigns/

10.    Track your results. I use Crowdbooster to help me analyze my followers, tweets, mentions, and retweets. Other excellent tools include TwitterCounter and Hootsuite, which will also let you schedule posts in advance and measure and refine results for specific campaigns.

What are some ways you increase your twitter following?

Newsletters are a great way to communicate ideas and offers to your clients. They can also serve as an opportunity to keep staff informed on internal and industry related news. But for a newsletter to captivate its audience, you need to follow certain simple, yet effective guidelines.

1. Keep articles short: A 300-400 word article is ideal to capture your audience's interest, and keep it. Anything too long and minds tend to wander. While graphics are a nice touch, too many and it either makes downloading difficult, or takes up valuable writing space. Always provide top notch information and add the graphics later.

2. Write an attention-grabbing headline: This is probably one of the most important things in a newsletter. This is what grabs your reader's attention even before the newsletter is scanned. So make it catchy and reader friendly.

3. Include a tip: Give all your subscribers a tip. People love receiving free information and a free tip has immense value. Include some helpful information, which your clients can actually use.

4. Always deliver what you promise: You must deliver (over deliver if possible) on your headline offer. If its 'quick and easy tips', then that's what they should be.  If your newsletter promises 5 ways to burn fat at home; then make sure you cover all 5 points- in detail and with facts/figures thrown in if possible. This is the best way of making sure your readers come back for more.

5. Diversify: As your newsletter base grows, diversify if necessary to ensure you capture your correct target; each time. If you are producing a newsletter for a health product/service; then make sure you address those looking to lose weight, tone up and get fit and if you have it, then advice for pregnant women, elderly clients etc.

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Want to create your own newsletter?

You'll find plenty of automated newsletter services. I use aweber which I find easy to set up and convenient to track and monitor responses.