What Social Media Should I Use?

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What Social Media Should I Use?

As a business person it depends upon where your customers can be found as well as the marketing model you have designed to reach those customers.

If you really know who you customers are as well as how to properly identify prospective customers, this will help you choose the social media venues and messages to attract your target demographic. One or more social media site is a “must have”.  We suggest that you start with a blank slate as there are hundreds of choices for what it is that your do. T3 (Time, Talent and Treasury) must be managed and accounted for, so spend it wisely.

It’s hard to calculate a monetary value of a fan, follower, or interaction, but you must project some kind of metric. Calculate T3 invested into to each avenue and cross reference this information to customer’s onboarded. You may find that answering a Quora question has higher value by answering a question that brings you more web traffic than a week’s worth of Tweeting. Nothing is required other than success.

So where do I go?  Research your competitors – see where they are hanging up shingles and look to the response of the group to their presents and message. Listen to the web, use free tools such as TweetDeck to keep tracking conversations and keywords. Upon that, then you can start building your strategy towards building your own community first and then to harness the power of your community to reach your customers.

Do Plan…

Outline what you want to achieve through your social media accounts, and prioritize these with choice makers Different social media platforms cater to different audiences and groups. LinkedIn is a business professional’s networking environment; Twitter is a great tool to generate mass awareness, but Facebook also allows for real local advertisements. Align use of these various social networks to identify the audience segment(s) you are trying to reach.

Intelligence

Research conversations and posts concerning the topics you are interesting in and that your company can provide value in.  See how you can add value to the conversation.  If not apparent we suggest that you simply move on.

Resources

Social media is not a short-term marketing strategy it is a long-term investment with your customers to engage with them regarding their wants and needs.  Social media takes a commitment over time.  Nothing stinks more than a 3 month old post to a Twitter account or to your Facebook page.  Thus, plan for the resources needed before you agree to launch 17 channels at once, make sure you have enough resources, internal or external, to get the job done, and done properly.

Execute and Measure

Once you have planed your entrance, work with your internal or external team to have at least 90-120 days of content in place before you send your first message/post your first image or video. Measure each and every day what is happening.  I have seen one photo and or comment take a post viral and add 100 fold or more traffic to a business – in just a day!

Know Your audience, including specifics about who they are, where they are, their demographics, the keywords to reach them, and their likes and dislikes – and direct them back to your site with a well designed landing page.

Must

Keep it current, keep it on topic, share guests, and know that You Tube is good for all around, linked in is a business to business and Facebook is business to consumer, etc… Also do use the social media icons and the RSS feed.

 

Do not fall into the trap of having to be everywhere at once. You will waste your time and look foolish if you do not have the resources to keep it current and on topic.

Marketing is about reinforcing customer behaviors that came before and will long out-lived the Internet. It’s not about running Facebook Sponsored Stories for the sake of doing so — work backwards from customers to media to content.

Some Social media sites to consider

CafeMom Delicious Facebook
Focus Google Plus + Googel Groups
LinkedIn Live Journal Meetup
Multiply MyLife myspace
Ning Pinterest Plaxo
Quora Tagged Twitter
Yelp You Tube hundreds more

 

Let us know what has worked for you?

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