3 Critical Steps that Lead to a Successful Social Media Strategy
As a company that provides a social media dashboard, we’re in a unique position to interact with businesses from many different industries. Since we want to provide the best social media management tool possible, we spend a lot of time talking with business owners about the challenges they face in regards to social media. One of the topics that comes up again and again is that business owners struggle with creating a consistent plan for social media posting and other forms of marketing through social media. While the specific reasons that
business owners encounter this obstacle may not be exactly the same, it’s a pattern that we see a lot. Since there are so many businesses that want to use social media but aren’t 100% sure how to do so, we thought it would be very beneficial to put together a guide to help businesses get on the right track with social media: Know Your Business Goals While social media has definitely created a new paradigm, that doesn’t mean it’s something that’s completely foreign. At the end of the day, social media simply provides another marketing channel for businesses. Because that’s the bottom line of social networks, it’s important to use the same type of accountability that would for any other marketing efforts. Specifically, businesses need to know what their business goals are, and then how social media can help them reach those goals. While it will probably take some trial and error to figure out which social channels work best, the important thing is that having a clear plan will allow you to do things like collect social media analytics and then analyze different efforts for their overall effectiveness. Diversify and Then Focus When you decide to start utilizing social media, the good news is it’s quite easy to set up profiles. Since this isn’t something that has to take a lot of time, it’s worth establishing a presence on the major networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. However, just because you establish a presence doesn’t mean you need to feel burdened. Instead of burning out by taking on too much at once, think about which networks make the most sense for your business and then experiment to see if your assumptions are correct. By being open to changing your approaches and focus, you’ll get much better results from all of your efforts.
Keep Social Media Marketing in the Right Light The biggest reason that businesses get frustrated with social media is they expect creating a Twitter account to change everything overnight. However, since that’s simply not how any form of marketing works, it’s important to keep the right mindset about social media. By acknowledging that social media can directly impact your business goals in a positive way but also remaining aware that it’s not a silver bullet, you’ll find that social media consistency and ultimately success come naturally with time. Published by: Nigel Miller VP Sales & Marketing at Send Social Media 1-888-329-4453