Dirks On Strategy

7 Steps to Social Media Marketing Success July 19, 2011

There was a time not long ago when ‘going digital’ meant that your business had to have a website.  However, having a website presence is no longer enough.  To reach more prospects and keep current clients from wandering away, creating and leveraging social media marketing tools like Facebook or Twitter can be critical.

Social media marketing (SMM) is simply the process of creating and engaging both prospective and current customers using social networks, online communities, blogs, and other digital platforms.  The ‘social’ aspect social media marketing means that there is a two-way dialogue between you and your customers.

According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry report, businesses noted three essential benefits of social media marketing.  First, it provides a way to stand out in an increasingly distracted world.  Secondly, SMM can help improve your search engine rankings over time.  And last but not least, SMM can generate qualified leads for your business.

Small business owners are already taxed for time trying to attend to daily business matters.  Now they find themselves trying to figure out how to create and leverage SMM.

Here are 7 key steps that should be considered as you establish a social media marketing strategy for your business.

1.  Have a goal for your social media strategy.  Social media without goals is aimless.   If you create a Facebook Fan page, you need to be clear about the type conversations you want to engage prospects and clients in and the results you expect.

The Orange County Business Accelerator, (www.facebook.com/OCAcelerator), for example, uses its Facebook page primarily to promote its latest workshops and forums.  Filling seats for their workshops is the goal.

Local author Gene Ladd (http://tinyurl.com/GeneLadd) uses his Facebook page to engage his readers and followers in discussions related to topics covered in his nutrition and spirituality books.  His goal is to grow his following with like-minded people who are also potential buyers of his books.

2.  Social media choices: less is more.  Focus on a few key social media platforms and excel on them.  With literally hundreds of digital platforms to choose from, start with one, say a blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, or your own YouTube channel.  Once you establish a presence on that platform, then invest time in learning it inside and out before adding any other social media platforms.  The idea is to only take on what you have time to handle.

Stick with the basic and most popular social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, Blogger, and BlogTalkRadio.  In most cases, I highly recommend starting with a simple blog or at most, a Facebook Fan page at first.  Neither costs anything to start other than your investment of time.

3.  Social media marketing is a content beast.  You should be prepared to feed the beast on a regular and consistent basis.  The basic types of content are written (i.e. blog or Fan Page post), video (i.e. YouTube.com), and audio (i.e. BlogTalkRadio.com).

Develop & produce fresh, relevant, and compelling content as often as you can.   To take some of the pressure off of yourself, encourage your partners and/or employees to also provide relevant business content whenever possible.

Create content that can be distributed across multiple social media platforms.  For example, Manhattan-based immigration attorney Brad Bernstein video records his daily radio show and then uploads it to his web radio channel (www.blogtalkradio.com/sparbernstein) and his YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/sparandbernstein).

Bernstein’s YouTube channel gets an average of 4,000 views each week.  Since he created it in 2007, his channel has garnered over 526,000 views and translates into booked consultations with prospective clients every week.
4.  Make your social media easy to find and link everything together.  What good is a blog or a YouTube channel if no one can find it?  If you have a website, make sure to link every social media property you have to it.

5.  Promote your social media sites constantly.  Promoting your social media marketing platforms is a 24/7 task.  Add your social media addresses to your email signature, on your business stationary, and your website of course.  Most social media sites allow you to add links so you can cross-promote on every site you have.

6.  Engage your audience.  Ask questions or discuss key issues in the context of your industry and business.  Create an open loop that encourages people to respond back.  Remember, social media means you have to be ‘social’.
7.  Social media marketing for the long haul.  All too often I see businesses that start a blog, Facebook page or some other social media presence and then flounder with little follow-up.  Eventually their social media efforts dwindle in direct proportion to their flagging investment of time creating and posting content.

Keep in mind that when you first engage in social media marketing, it will seem to take forever to build a following.  Like top athletes, you’ll ‘hit the wall’ on social media effort.  Keep pushing forward until you get your ‘second wind’ to keep up your social media efforts.

Most social media sites cost little to establish your business presence on.  The real cost is in creating and then sharing content that is relevant and engages your prospective and current customers.

If you can consistently create and share content with your social media audience of prospects and customers, you’ll be that much farther ahead of your competition.  Be assured that most are still asleep at the wheel of the social media opportunity but not for long.