What’s your social media strategy? Do you even have one? Social media tools and platforms are multiplying by the nanosecond and it’s easy to feel the pressure that you should be engaging with this ‘new’ form of marketing – I often have clients ask me slightly fearfully – “Should I be twittering?!”
Well the answer of course is it all depends! On your personality, your target market and the type of business you’re in.
It also helps to bear in mind that networking is not new! Online networking is simply an easy and perhaps cheaper way for you to engage with a broader range of people and potential customers than you would normally come across in the physical world.
The rules of social engagement remain the same online as they are off; be courteous, respond and have something interesting and useful to say!
Blogging, microblogging, bookmarking and other forms of online networking are generally free or very low-cost ways to advertise yourself but they’re also time intensive and time is money. So devise a strategy and be clear on why you’re doing it.
The main reasons are:
* To help you engage in informal conversations with potential customers
* To keep you as the number one choice in your prospect’s mind
* To establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field and location
* To generate links back to your website
* To increase your website’s ranking in the search engines
* To help prospective customers come to know, like and trust you
* To keep an eye on the competition, new developments, good practice etc
Take your personality into account before you launch your social media strategy. Do you enjoy chatting or are you more introverted? Do you love writing on your subject or hate the thought of putting pen to paper? If you’re unlikely to enjoy interacting with social media then you probably won’t keep it up, so don’t set yourself up to fail, come up with a strategy that you have a chance at sticking to and that suits your lifestyle.
Does your target market use social media? Do some research with your existing customers if you’re not sure and then stay focussed by only engaging with the main platforms where your prospects spend their time.
Does your business model support social networking? If you are in a service or consultancy based business then often clients do their research fairly thoroughly before calling you. When they come across content you’ve generated across the web you’ve given them a chance to get to know, like and trust you and the likelihood that they’ll call you will increase dramatically.
Social media tools are a very useful component of a small businesses marketing strategy but they aren’t the be all and end all. You still have to drive prospects to them and this is often best done using traditional marketing techniques such as advertising, PR and direct mail (including email) at the same time whether on or offline.
If you’re thinking about starting to use social media or you want to have a clearer strategy, then signing up for a 1 to 1 Social Media course with me will give you a head start. I tailor the session to suit your business and objectives and take into account whether you’re a beginner or at a more advanced stage. I provide lots of advice on how to use social media to help your website climb the search engines, the best tools to use to make social networking as pain free as possible and I’ll even set you up with a basic blog just to get you going. If you want to get the most out of social media then email me and I’ll send you an outline of what we could cover to get you blogging with the best of them!
