10tipsto get you startedwith social media

Deciding to begin a social media strategy is easy, but actually getting started is the hard part. Be sure that before you begin, you have a clear idea as to why you want to add a social media strategy to your marketing mix. It’s also a good idea in the beginning to layout what social media platforms you’ll be using, frequency of posting and who will be participating in keeping up your social media streams.

If you don’t have goals for what you hope to achieve through social media, it’s pretty much like throwing darts in the dark. In order to really track your ROI, you’ll need to have clearly de�ned goals so you know what to measure. Goals such as increasing customer service satisfaction, increasing revenue, online lead generation and lowering advertising costs are all good examples of measurable goals.

Social media connects us all and gives us unlimited access to just about everyone in the world. If we try and talk to everyone on the same level, the power of our messaging gets diluted. Knowing and identifying your target audience and who speci�cally you want your messages to reach will guide you towards writing your best content.

Even though Twitter is the only platform limited to 140 characters, keeping your message under 140 characters for all platforms is usually a good idea. It makes your message consistent and makes measuring results a lot easier then if you were to have varying degrees of the same message.

One of the main reasons for participating in social media is to gain a readership base that helps market your business. In order to do this, you must write content that is going to engage your audience. Establish your online voice presence and build your brand by telling stories about you and your business. Create a reason that makes people feel like they have to have what you are selling. People believe things that they can relate to. If they can relate to your stories, they’ll most likely relate to your business and what you are selling.

Just saying you will be on social media daily isn’t enough. Many of us tend to start out strong, but then our participation tends to wane o� until you stop using it all together. Consider creating an editorial calendar to help plan out your weekly social media campaign. Utilizing tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck can also aid you in your planning. Both tools are vital to helping you stay consistent.

Blogging is an excellent way to share engaging content with your readers. When you create original content, it helps establish you and your business as experts in the industry. Couple this with providing valuable resources, white papers, case studies, etc… and your customers will begin coming to you as their go-to resource.

Social media cannot be a one-way conversation, nor can it be all about you. Listen to what other people have to say and join in. Thank people for following you, congratulate people on new project ventures, ask questions, give advice and remember to be subtle on touchy subjects. If you are posting on behalf of a business, it’s always a good idea to be neutral on certain topics such as politics and religion.

Are you interested in attracting new followers? Put your social media handles on your website, email signature, LinkedIn page, Facebook cover page, Twitter background and other areas where allowable. Consider putting them on your business cards and promotional pieces too. The best way to get followers, besides being consistent, is to give people the opportunity to directly connect with you in your normal communication activities

Measuring your results is absolutely vital to any social media campaign. Though there are many ways to measure the success of a campaign, some of those ways include; tracking interactions, new likes, retweets, mentions and referrers.

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