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Facebook and Twitter and
LinkedIn, oh my!
By Virginia Humphrey
Social media
is now a fairly
common practice for most businesses
and individuals. It can be a little
confusing or intimidating when
you are just starting out though.
There are a lot of options and
“social media” can really mean just
about anything—online magazines,
microblogs, podcasts, picture
sharing, the list goes on and on.
Should your company be engaging
in social media? Probably, in some
way, shape, or form.
One in six marriages starts online.
If people are looking for “the one”
on a computer screen you had
better believe that they are looking
for your product as well.
Social media has a powerful
amplifying effect and more reach
that I think we can actually
comprehend.
You should take a thoughtful look at
who you want to interact with, why
they would interact with you, and
create a social media strategy.
Future articles will walk through
different social media platforms, but
for now let’s try to get the backbone
developed first.
Step 1. Create Your Goals &
Write Them Down
What do you want your social
media efforts to achieve? You, of
course, want to build your following
and increase engagement, but to
what end? Do you want to increase
sales? Increase brand awareness?
Build your database? Drive traffic to
your website? How are you going to
measure success?
Step 2. Determine Your Target
Market
Are you speaking to CEO’s, sales
reps, plant managers? What are
they interested in?
Step 3. Determine Which
Social Media Outlets will Help
You Reach Your Goals
Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn,
oh my. There is also Google+,
Pintrist (which many people swear
has business applications, though
I am still at a loss to find them),
Tumblr, Reddit, FourSquare,
YouTube, I could go on for days.
Like I mentioned earlier, I will get
in to many of these and walk you
through pros and cons, and maybe
even some how-to’s.
Step 4. Develop a Content
Calendar
How many messages do you want to
send in a day/ week? (Note: You should
never go more than a week without
posting something somewhere.) Who
is responsible for sending them out?
What do you want to say?
A good rule of thumb is only promote
your company or products 20% of
the time and use the other 80% to
give people tips, interesting facts, or
updates that they need to know. That
means that you need to be a thought
leader in the field. You can start a
blog, ask your followers for their
thoughts, write white papers, re-post/
tweet industry trends, or a host of
other options.
You may be surprised how fast you
go through content if you are posting
every day, so I recommend having
your content ready a few months
ahead of time. That way you are never
at a loss of what to say. Planning ahead
should also, in no way, inhibit you
from acting spontaneously. If you see
something outstanding or a major
event occurs it is ok to bump your
scheduled posts a bit. This flexibility
also lets you remain current, which
is key, because you know how short
people’s social media attention span is.
Step 5. Create a Response
Plan
If your social media is successful
you will get responses. People will
be talking about you and at you.
What are you going to do about it?
Like any technology, social media,
can be used for good or evil. You
need to think about how you will
handle constructive (and not so
constructive) criticism and who is
going to handle it. You also need to
determine who will be monitoring
the social media outlets of others to
see if your company starts trending.
Part of the response side is also
making sure that your company’s
profile is actively participating on
industry related social media sites
and conversations- like AICC’s
discussion groups on Linked-In or
our AskRalph blog. This will help
your company build trust on social
media sites and keep your company
in the loop. Follow your clients
in an effort to encourage them to
follow you.
Step 6. Analyze your Results
You set goals, so now that you have
gone through all the other steps and
executed your plan it is time to see
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