Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 1 Social media networks were supposed to be the promised land for small businesses. They were supposed to be the great equalizer, the marketing tools that finally gave start-ups the same exposure as the industry leaders. But if that’s the case, why does your company still only have eight friends on Facebook? Running a successful social media strategy isn’t as easy as many small business owners think it will be. Your company’s online success depends on several factors, and if you don’t account for all of them, you could find yourself stuck in the social media wastelands. That’s not something many business owners like to hear, but the good news is that getting out of the Internet desert is simply a matter of redirecting your efforts. While thousands of businesses struggle to establish a presence online, they all tend to have trouble with the same four issues. So if you’re not getting poked as often as you deserve, use this guide to troubleshoot your social media strategy. 1. Stop trying to build Rome. Build relationships. Expanding your company’s social media presence isn’t a game for the impatient. You can’t build an Internet empire overnight, and you won’t win any fans by trying. Instead of relentlessly promoting your business to expand your customer base, focus your efforts on building a good relationship with the friends and followers you already have. If you do, your customers will be more likely to turn to your company whenever they need a product that you’re selling. That sort of recognition leads to positive reviews, and positive reviews will always lead to more customers. 2. Be more than active. Be hyperactive. You know when the Internet isn’t being used? Never. At any given moment in time, there are millions of Americans browsing their favorite social networks. And since the Internet never rests, your social media campaign shouldn’t either. You should be posting multiple updates, blogs and tweets a day, every single day of the week for every single week of the year. Sound impossible? It’s not. Thanks to social media scheduling platforms like HootSuite, you can schedule a month’s worth of activity for multiple social networks at once. That allows you to spend one afternoon generating content and the rest of the time running your business. This might seem a lot of extra work on your end, but it’s necessary to build the social media presence you need. Remember this: on the Internet, when you’re not swimming, you’re sinking. 3. Aim for a social media strategy that matches your value propositions. You’d be surprised how many companies forget to keep their social media strategies in line with their value propositions. When marketing yourself online, you need to remember your target market. It’s a good idea for a business appraisal company to blog about selling a business. It’s a bad idea for a hair salon to do the same thing. Pandering to the wrong demographics or posting tweets and status updates that are in no way relevant to your business is just asking for trouble. 4. Stop looking for love in all the wrong places. The social media world isn’t limited to one network. Sure, Facebook was all the rage for a while, but now dozens of new niche networks are catching on. If your target market is soccer moms, then you should be posting on Pinterest. If you want to appeal to business owners, however, then you should try to get a guest slot on LinkedIn. And if you want to win over music-loving teens, you should look into Spotify and SoundCloud. These niche sites make it easy to access the customers you’re after, but only if you know which ones to use. Explore multiple social networks to get a feel for who uses them, then focus your efforts on the ones that are most likely to attract your target demographic. If your company is struggling to establish an online identity, take a closer look at how you’re using social media, because even if you think your social media strategy is sound, there’s a good chance that one of these four things is holding you back. The next time you have an hour to kill, take stock of your social networking campaign. Make sure you’re targeting the right people in the right markets and that you’re doing enough to get your company noticed. When everything checks out, the friend requests will start rolling in. It’s just that easy. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on http://blog.workface.com/ and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Perry Sheraw Follow @ebizappraisals Perry Sheraw is the founder and executive vice president of eBusiness Appraisals. She is a dedicated business owner advocate with a mission to ensure all business owners have access to critical information in order to make the right choices and achieve the highest possible value from their life’s work.… View full profile ›More by this author:CEOs Behaving Badly: The Top 4 CEO Lawsuits5 Ways to Market Your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget