10 Tips ~ Getting Started in Social Media Marketing

bymamazepp

1.2K followers

Updated 10 years ago

Like it or not, you need social media more than it needs you so you can develop and protect your reputation ~ and grow your business.

When using social media to market and build your business, the worst action is no action. Another thing is that your biggest problem is actually being invisible and not being discussed or talked about negatively. So, think of it this way, as long as you're part of the social web conversation, you can hear what's being discussed about you or your site and then massage out the negative perceptions or points made about your business. Though, if there is no one talking about you, there is no chance for your business growth. This means that you need to get involved on the social Web as soon as you possibly can ~ not only to capitalize on the opportunities it presents to your business, but also to develop as well as protect your reputation.

It's a good idea to start with a plan that has goals. An organizational framework can help keep you on track. If you begin down a path on the social media path and really dislike or even hate what you're doing, you can still change things around. This is done just as when you change networking practices or conversational approaches in person, you can do so on the social media network. The only differences are that on the social Web, you're actually talking through your keyboard and your potential audience is much, much larger.

Here are 10 steps to help get you started:

1. Determine Goals ~ What do you want to get out of your social media participation? Why are you doing it? Are you trying to generate actual (direct) sales? Are you trying to offer a type of customer service? Do you want to build relationships with customers and boost loyalty? Your answers to these questions will greatly affect the type of content you publish and the activities you participate in on the social media sites you choose.

2. Evaluate Resources ~ Who is going to create the content? Who is going to maintain your social media accounts? Who is going to respond to website questions and be the face of your online business? Do you have the technical ability to join the online conversation? If not, are you willingto learn? Can you or someone who works with you write well? You need to be sure you have the necessary people in place to execute a social media marketing plan even BEFORE youstart.

3. Know Your Audience ~ Where does your target audience spend time online? What kind of content and conversations do the audience members get most vocal about? What kind ofinformationdo they want from you? What do they dislike? Remember, you're not just publishing marketing messages on the social media sites. You need to find out what your audience wants and needs, so you can provide the type of content they will find useful and interesting. However, you also need to be personable so they actually want to interact with you.

4. Create Amazing Content ~ Once you know where your audience spends time and what kind of content audience members want, take the time to give them more of that type of content. Don't give up. You need to continually offer your audience amazing content, which also comes in the form of conversations, in order to build a loyal following of people that trust you as a source that can meet their needs and expectations.

5. Integrate Marketing Efforts ~ All of your hard work and efforts at social media marketing should feed off each other. Cross-promote these efforts both online and offline, and make sure your social media and traditional marketing efforts work together seamlessly.

6. Create a Schedule ~ Allocate specific times during your day to devote to social media marketing (this goes along with how we should schedule our time blog I wrote previously). For example, spend 5 or 10 minutes on Twitter (or other media sites) before you check your email each day and another 5 or 10 minutes before you leave work each day. When you create this kind of schedule, it's easier to stick to it and make sure you don't forget or skip your social media marketing activities each day.

7. Adopt 80-20 Rule ~ Always spend at least 80% of your time on social media activities that are not self-promotional and no more than 20% of your time on self-promotional activities. You have to come across as active and not just trying to sell something in order to reach an audience on any social media site.

8. Focus on Quality, NOT Quantity ~ It can be easy to get caught up in the numbers, but don't become a slave to followers and subscribers. It's so much better to have 1,000 highly engaged, loyal followers than 10,000 followers who sign up to follow you but then never acknowledge you again.

9. Give Up Control ~ You must let your audience take control of the online conversation and make it their own so they develop an emotional attachment to you, your brand, and your business. Remember, on the social media sites, apathy or invisibility is a bigger problem than negativity.

10. Continue Learning ~ You can never stop listening and learning. For success in social media marketing, you need to be flexible and accept that any change is good.

Good luck out there and hope this helped (even just a little!). So, go Tweet, Friend or Pin away….