Participating on social media platforms can present many challenges from knowing when to post, what to post and how to engage. While we all know that utilizing a variety of channels is important to your marketing mix, it can become overwhelming. It is a big investment of time and energy. So many individuals or companies will create a profile, upload a few posts and then desert the community.
It takes time to build a loyal following and that is only achieved through mutual dialog and building relationships. Social media is not just a soapbox to taut your company, yourself or your achievements. The old adage, people buy from people holds steadfast.
If you were at a cocktail party, you wouldn’t rush up to someone and abruptly hand them your business card and begin to spew your elevator speech. Refrain from the same ME ME song on social media.
- Identify your social business goals
- Learn about metrics
- Understand ROI
- Create a social media strategy
- Discover tools to help you search, curate, share and measure
- Plan your profiles with keywords and custom images
- Watch
- Listen
- Set up alerts for keywords, interests, thought leaders AND competitors
- Review profiles and websites
- Get listed on directories
- Create your content plan with a balance of rich information to share and how you will give back to your community.
- Engage and build relationships
- Be authentic
- Use humor
- Compliment others and share their content
- Ask questions
- Post some promotional content
- Automate and push some relevant content leaving you time to engage
- Delegate curation and posting to a virtual assistant or other authority
- Download 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report http://buff.ly/164RzsW from Social Media Examiner
Convincing Statistics
“A significant 62% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more and 36% for 11 or more hours weekly.” Social Media Examiner
“74% of all marketers say Facebook is important to their lead generation strategies.” HubSpot
“85% of fans of brands on Facebook recommend brands to others, compared to 60% of average users.” Syncaspe
“Approximately 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision.” Nielsen
Platform # of Users Facebook 1.11 Foursquare 33 million Google + 343 million Instagram 100 million LinkedIn 225 million Pinterest 48.7 million Quora 2.9 million SkillPages 8 million SlideShare 50 million Twitter 500 million
With figures like these, who wouldn’t make the time to stay involved in social media?
Image credit: Social Media Examiner