My interactions with business executives at my firm, have brought home the unwelcome truth that there is a consistent lack of coherent social media strategy and macro-level hybrid marketing plans. Most of the current breed of online marketers, have failed to go beyond the LinkedIn, Facebook and the Twitter profiles. The profiles that did not result in almighty dollar!
This brings me back to my original focus on a coherent social media strategy which will align all of your business activities, goals and plans to generate a consistently higher ROI for your firm's stakeholders. According to Wikipedia, a strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.
Over the course of years the blog really starts to do some heavy lifting for your business because the content has been piling up and the search engines are directing people to your site with increased frequency. Then again, if you don't have the stamina or discipline to write two or three blog posts a week for the rest of your business career you better have the budget to pay someone to do the work for you.
How's that supposed to happen? Unless you can drive traffic to your social media effort, it's akin to a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it. Many tools can drive traffic, including Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, blogs, and SEO, but word of mouth trumps them all -- one friend telling another, "Hey, check this out!" is very powerful.
Social media does not have to be a daily task, but it certainly should be something used weekly. A small business might post community news, events in the lives of staff members and their families, cross-promotions with other local businesses, and content related to its products or services.
Social media is essential to large companies in the 21st century. Modern consumers are discerning and intelligent. They want companies to be responsive and transparent. Social media allows your company to hear from and speak with customers, address their concerns, and generate positive feelings about your brand.
The first major benefit of social media is that it brings awareness. It is a low-cost way to get your name or the name of your organization on the web and into the minds of customers, patrons, and prospects. Anyone can set up an account on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Merchant Circle, Plaxo and dozens of other sites free of charge. The only cost involved is the cost of your time.
Twitter recently unveiled a service that lets you organize and follow lists tweets that are relevant or interesting to you. You can create the list using your own criteria. The great thing about these lists is that you don't have to follow people to follow the topic.
now why would you want to engage in activity that is not only counterproductive but could get you banned or blocked from your friends or followers? Spam sucks. Remember, social media is all about engagement. Not annoying others. No one wants to read tweets or other content stuffed with keywords or receive some automated update every five minutes on your product or service. Engaging in excessive self-promotion can also cause your friends and followers to see you as being too spammy. Spamming is a sure-fire way to get blacklisted.
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