Psychology figures into every aspect of our lives. It certainly is a factor in our behavior as human beings and it also factors into what we do professionally and how we do it. There is a strong possibility that you have social media profiles for your business and that you interact with other people online on a regular (or, at least, semi-regular) basis.

Having a well-organized strategy for your social media profiles
The fact is that even if you have profiles on several social media channels, it doesn't necessarily follow that you are using all of the opportunities that exist within those particular social media channels.

There are so many features and tools that you may not even be aware that a lot of them actually exist. Well, the first thing that you will need to do to change that situation is to research what the various social media channels have to offer you. Once you have accomplished that, the next thing that you will have to do is to button down the strategy that you will use for your particular business. That is where the thinking part comes in.

It is very common that you launch your business but don't give the thinking behind that business much conscious thought. That is probably a very big mistake. Before you can run, you have to crawl and then walk. In order to do that, you need to understand why you are doing what you are doing and to make sure that your thinking is sound before you execute your strategy. If you have not gone through those steps initially, you may really be affecting your business in a negative way.

Of course, that is not the end of the world and it is reversible. You can begin to take steps that will make a difference to the level of success that you realize for your business.

Getting people to pay attention to your brand
Your first objective is to draw a lot of positive attention from other people. You are an astute business person so you understand fully that it is necessary for you to interact with people online in addition to sharing an in-person relationship with them whenever possible.

It is all tied into how successful you can be and, of course, that means selling more of what you have to offer. The fact is that you can accomplish that quite easily if you have an effective social profile (in each of the social media channels that you have chosen).

Okay, let's go through the steps, which are quite simple. First of all, assuming that you have established your social media profiles appropriately and completely, you write and post (and syndicate) top-quality content, which you have put a great deal of effort and time into developing.

That content can be posted in a usual place or it can be posted by someone else with whom you share a relationship. That opens up all sorts of possibilities as far as the exposure of your content is concerned. That content has the potential to be read by a large number of people who don't know you or your business yet. That is actually a good thing initially. Don't worry. Those people will get to know you and what you represent. It won't take very long at all. Your ultimate goal (and this is the ultimate goal of most people) is to increase your revenue stream at some point in the near (or not so near) future. Why else would you be in business?

Of course, the challenge that faces you when it comes to your unfamiliar audience is that they may be less accepting initially than target audience members who already know you. You have no reason to be concerned about that. They will not judge you for very long. Just be as genuine and helpful as you possibly can and everything will be fine. That is your approach anyway so you actually will not be doing anything different with that audience than you would otherwise. This is where the thinking behind your strategy is so important. The new readers will be getting the first impression of you and it needs to be extremely positive. In fact, it needs to be positive enough to allow them to want to read on.

Leveraging the new relationship
You should try to consider your potential relationships with new people as an exciting challenge and an exciting opportunity. You will want to leverage those opportunities to the best of your ability. So much good can come out of that situation. If you connect with someone for the first time, the chances are that the other person will have very little knowledge about who you are as a person (on any more than a superficial level).

That is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are faced with that situation, you are starting with a blank sheet of paper. You have the option of viewing that as a challenge (a negative challenge) in which you are stumped about what you should be expressing or you can look at it as a wonderful opportunity to express yourself in any number of exciting and creative ways. You have a world of possibilities in front of you.

Which path you choose in that situation will either make or break what happens in the future. It is up to you to choose wisely. That is a critical point at which you need to really think about how you want to approach the other person. Your social media profiles are tools that will help you to gain entrance to interactions with the other person.

Conclusion
Thinking is a huge factor behind your professional success. In fact, you can't do anything without putting a lot of thought into it first. It is a necessary preliminary step and without it, you will have no foundation upon which to build. Your thinking will pave the way for all that comes after it. Sometimes you will need to take risks with your business but you need to make sure that those are calculated, educated risks. If you do that, everything will work out as it should.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).