I’ve been watching with interest the fast uptake of ‘Social Media Marketing’ by business lately. It seems that every second business website includes an array of funky social media buttons and icons. Yes, even mine!
We can now follow, fan, like and connect with all these businesses. My questions is why would we want to? And when we do connect, how interactive are we truly? Do we really take any notice of their ‘social media marketing’?
Over the past few weeks, maybe months, I’ve started to doubt some of the strategies being promoted to small business. We’re being told to build our social media profiles or we will be left behind. And that we should connect with as many people as possible.
How will building a social media presence benefit a business if they then don’t know what to do with it, or like so many – they don’t do anything with it?
Is there really any benefit in accumulating masses of followers on Twitter, or friends on Facebook if they are not your target market and may not even be interested in what you offer? If you have 5000 friends on Facebook but you are really only truly connected to 50 of them, then what’s the point?
It is NOT a numbers game. Quality beats quantity anyday. Quality comes from building real relationships and providing real value.
See, even Seth Godin agrees with me;
If you really want to get value from your ‘Social Media Marketing’ here are my top 3 tips before you even get started;
1. THINK ABOUT IT.
Imagine you are your prospect – your target market. What do they want to know about? What would they be interested in reading, seeing or hearing on social media? Why would your visitors and prospects want to follow, fan, like or connect with your business? What value will you provide?
I encourage you to THINK about your business goals, who your market is and what they want, and how social media could assist your communications and relationships, before you say yes to Social Media Marketing.
2. PLAN IT.
I encourage you to plan how you will use social media as a business marketing strategy.
Plan so you can avoid the two biggest mistakes made by businesses who jump into social media! Those big mistakes are not maintaining your social media presence, and the second is using it solely as advertising space.
Once you’ve given it proper thought and decided to pursue it, the next step is to plan how you will roll out your social media profiles, and how you will maintain them over time. The slapping together of a Facebook page is the easy part. The hard part and the part that will make a difference is what you do with it the weeks and months after it goes live.
Some questions to answer in the planning phase include; Which platforms are best suited to you and your business? How often will you contribute content? Who will be responsible? Who else will help? How much time will you commit?
3. ACTION IT.
Someone has to be responsible and I’ll be blunt – it’s a tough task to outsource. If you’re a small business, and particularly if your business brand revolves around you as the owner, often outsourcing is not the key. Don’t worry there is still help to be had. You don’t have to do everything, but you do need to be involved in the planning and the implementation. So you WILL need to get your head around it and be involved!
Your action plan will include the setup stage, the ongoing strategy and the implementation plan. The best results will be had by businesses that not only get themselves on social media, but who are active and consistently maintain their presence and plan.
Social Media can work for most small business if they can embrace it and put the thought, plan and action to it.
I welcome your comments below…
