Why You Need to Spend More Time on Facebook: How Social Media Can Connect WAHMs to Their Professional Network
By Guest Blogger, Kristi Gaylord
The benefits of being a work-at-home mom are widely known.
We’re are able to spend heaps of quality time with our kids, avoid shelling out fistfuls of cash for an expensive professional wardrobe, avoid lengthy and stressful commutes, and, perhaps best of all, we can work in our pajamas and slippers, workout gear and sneakers, or jeans and a t-shirt.
The personal and creative freedoms associated with working for ourselves are a big part of why we chose this career path.
Yet despite the many positive aspects of this work situation, there are drawbacks to at-home self-employment. Sometimes attempting to work with young children around (or underfoot, or on our laps) is all but impossible. Sometimes we find it difficult to separate the different spheres of our lives since we both work at home and live at work. And sometimes we feel isolated – cut off from the corporate offices, team-building activities, and coworker banter some of us left behind in pursuit of a more flexible schedule.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Evolving technology has enabled WAHMs to stay connected to the “outside world” in ways not available to us even two years ago. Myriad online tools and resources exist to allow us to connect and network with former coworkers, business partners, clients (both current and potential), and friends across the globe with minimal effort.
Here are some ways we can build our businesses, add clients, connect with others in our field, and stay in touch with friends and former coworkers who can help us grow our professional network.
Join the NessWorld WAHM Alliance
If you’re reading this, chances are you know a little bit about what Vanessa is trying to accomplish. NessWorld is an alliance of WAHMs who want to market their businesses to their local communities. Designed to provide WAHMs with exposure, professional opportunities, and networking capabilities, Vanessa will set up your free profile page, and then help you promote it to your network. You can also access tons of helpful articles about running a business from home, including those on how to create marketing opportunities and advice on how to grow your business while maintaining a good work-life balance. Best of all, you can connect with other moms who are awake with the sun and trying to get some work done before the kids get up.
Boost Your Facebook Time
Yes, that’s right. You need to spend more time on Facebook. This social networking website is more than a place to reconnect with the boy who broke your heart in 11th grade and secretly gloat over the fact that you have aged much better than he has. Create a Facebook page for your business, send your clients and friends invitations to join the page, and post business-related updates on your wall (Think: “Working on an exciting new marketing plan for Company X!” rather than “On my forth shot of tequila and still going strong!”). Fill out your profile with links to your work, share articles that interest your clients, and even market your products by posting special offers or packages.
Get LinkedIn
If you’re not already on LinkedIn, you should be. LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site that allows users to create and maintain a list of business contacts. The contacts are called Connections, and users can also see those connected to members of their contact list (similar to the Friend Lists of your Facebook friends). This helps you broaden your own professional contacts or client base. Ask a happy client, or a former manager or co-worker to write you a glowing recommendation to appear on your page, and you have an online business profile available to your entire business network, and their connections as well.
Get Your Tweet On With Twitter
As it is with the other social media tools, Twitter has radically changed the way we communicate. It’s a great way to let your network of friends and business contacts know about a new project, informally collaborate with others in your field, or reach out to friends when you’re having a tough day at the “office.” Tweets are short (140 characters or fewer), quick, and to-the-point, and can instantly relay information to both your personal and professional networks.
In many ways, working from home sounds like the ideal situation for moms. But staying connected to the professional world many of us left behind is challenging when the demands of our families and jobs eat up most of day. Social media tools allow you to quickly and easily harness the awesome connective power of the Internet and put it to work for you and your business.
read moreWAHM: Staying Organised
So you’re a mom. You have kids, you work from home, and just when everything is going fantastically well, you get a bunch of holidays thrown into the mix, a pile of wonderful work that is both challenging and exciting, and you really have no idea how you’re going to get everything done. Then, one of the kids gets the flu, and well, the craziness ensues.
Welcome to the life of a Work At Home Mom!
Just when women were breaking through glass ceilings in the corporate arena, all over the world, we go and decide that it’s not enough to simply become managers and She-E-Os, but now, we *really* want to have it all, and we go and give ourselves the most difficult position of all.
It’s called, ‘I-Want-It-All’-syndrome, and it affects women who have left the corporate world, to have kids, and then decide to work from home. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do from home, but if it’s work that brings you a much appreciated income, and you arrange your schedule around the needs of your children and spouse, and you have a household to run as well (those without full time cleaners and nannies – yes that’s us!), then congratulations! You’ve just signed up for the ride of your life. A rollercoaster ride that will be absolutely exhilarating in places, downright terrifying in others, and best of all, you-cannot-get-off.
Hurray!
The key, to maintaining at best a sense of calm, and at worst, simply your sanity, I have found, is organisation.
Keeping your life organised through the use both real and electronic diary’s, calendar applications etc is absolutely essential to maintain order.
My own personal system consists of a regular diary in which I plan my day using a pencil.
Call it a first draft if you will. A statement of intent.
It’s also the place where I jot down any information taken down during the day, like telephone number from new contacts etc. It might sound archaic in this digital age, but I prefer to think of it as a fail-safe back up, in the event of a power failure.
From here I transfer any contact details into Apple “Address Book” application, and any appointments into iCal, Apples built in Calendar application.
Even though these are perfectly good standalone applications, they also work fantastically well together, and of course, your mail application also works seamlessly with both of these in terms of accessing email addresses and confirming appointments.
Even better, they can also be sync-ed with an iPhone and also Blackberry (which I do) so you carry all your contacts, to-do’s and appointments around with you in your handbag.
It definitely makes life a lot easier, and a lot less stressful, and you are less likely to forget things if they are easily accessible on an item like a smartphone. I set my reminders with alarms so that whether I am sitting in front of the iMac, or out doing a quick grocery shop, or on a school run, that I am is instantly reminded of tasks which require completion.
It is in this spirit of organisation, and efficiency, that I have decided to set up a weekly posting schedule on NessWorld, rather than trying to keep up a daily post. That way you’ll always know when to tune in for the latest updates, and I have a whole week to work on a post that is helpful, informative and as chock-full of information and news as possible.
Kicking off the weekly postings, which will be on Tuesdays, will be a guest post, from highly esteemed blogger and professional writer, Kristi Gaylord who is a WAHM with a pre-schooler, and toddler twins!
In Kristi’s post tomorrow, she talks about the benefits of social media marketing for WAHMs, and how we can use it for networking to support one another.
Check back tomorrow!
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