Yesterday I challenged you to learn how to use social media like a Jedi. I said that any fool can swing a lightsaber; it takes a Jedi to wield the force.

In social media, the “force” is syngergizing social media elements (like twitter and Pinterest) to unleash the viral power of community. The way you make your social media elements work together is your social media strategy. Social media gives us the power to use one medium to amplify the effects of another, and vice versa. Michael Hyatt is the master of this concept.

How To Use Social Media Like a Jedi: Get Strategic

There’s a difference between tactics and strategy. Posting tweets during lunch hour is a tactical move. To get to the bottom of your strategy, take out a pencil (or stylus on your iPad) and draw out how you see all the planets within your social media solar system interacting with each other.

To figure this out, ask yourself, “What does success look like? What do I want a new tribe member to do? Where do I want them to end up?” My old social media solar system was blog centric. Everything had to come to that blog. More hits, more subscriptions, you name it. Come to papa at my blog:

social-media-blog-centric

That can work, if you’ve got cash oozing from your pores that you can throw at professionals who can make your website do everything. But if you aren’t rich and your goal isn’t just to sell something, your blog shouldn’t sit on the throne of your social media solar system.

A couple of months ago I had a few epiphanies about Facebook that changed my strategy. Here’s how I draw my social media solar system now:

IMG_0272

Notice that my blog is still the primary source of my content and that it plays a critical role. But it’s not where I want people to end up. What I really want is for every reader to like my Facebook Fan Page, Geek Faith Tribe. All my roads lead there.

A Few Jedi-Worthy Epiphanies About Facebook

  • By setting up shop on Facebook, I’ve injected Geek Faith Tribe into people’s daily stream instead of asking them to leave their path to drop by my website for a visit. You could say Facebook social media is by nature incarnational.
  • Viewing content on Facebook is different than viewing the same content in your inbox because you’re in a social space when you’re viewing it. You’re already in a social mood. Facebook doesn’t just offer sharing and networking, it is sharing and networking. Seth Godin says you need three things to form a tribe: A leader with an idea, people to rally around it, and a way for those people to interact with each other. Welcome to Facebook.
  • Facebook builds in powerful social functionality that would take lots of time and effort to reproduce on my blog. I can introduce polls, I can feature pages, run contests, create landing pages for products, celebrate milestones, post videos, you name it.
  • When someone joins the Geek Faith Tribe on Facebook, everything I do, post, and say carries potential to spread my message through them. It’s subscribing to a social stream instead of merely subscribing to content.
  • Facebook enables me to post little things—oddities, related photos, pertinent links—without making a blog post out of each of them. It means I can stay top of mind in people’s feeds without blogging several times a day. This realization alone was worth a million dollars.

You might be thinking, “I already use Facebook.” But social media Jedi don’t just use Facebook. They put it at the centre of their social media solar system.

This solar switch has helped me harness the power of the social media force. Geek Faith Tribe is now growing rapidly, the blog is growing along with it, and I’m able to reach more people. The Facebook effect is empowering me to use social media like a Jedi. And it will help you, too.

Tomorrow I’m going to share a six powerful social media tactics related to Google, Facebook, blogging, and Pinterest.

Does this make sense to you? Do you agree? Disagree? Comment below!