The No 1 Social Media Mistake Businesses Make
If like many other small business owners you're busy blogging, tweeting, posting Facebook status updates, articles, videos etc.
but not generating any additional traffic or leads chances are you've made a very common mistake - not having a clearly thought through social media strategy.
There are 3 main reasons why it's essential to have a strategy in place before taking the social media plunge: 1.
If you don't set clear goals you are likely to waste a lot of time and energy doing things that don't support your business objectives and without SMART objectives you won't be able to measure your "return on engagement" or decide what priority to give to social media activities.
2.
If you haven't done your research and worked out who your targets are, where they're hanging out online, what sort of content they're interested in and respond to you won't know where to focus your efforts.
3.
Social media requires a long term commitment.
It's not something you can just pick up and then put down again whenever you're busy doing other things, so you need to be clear at the outset how much time you are going to have to invest to get the results you want and be sure that you can sustain the necessary level of input on a consistent basis.
Here are the 10 key steps involved in developing a social media strategy: 1.
Set company goals and objectives - What do you want to achieve from social media? How is it going to help you achieve your business goals? What specific measurable objectives are you going to focus on? 2.
Find your audiences - Who are your target audiences? How can you segment them? Who do you need to connect and engage with? What are they interested in? What do they respond to? Where do they hang out? Who are the key influencers? Where are the conversations taking place about your industry, business or brand? 3.
Competitor analysis - How are they using social media? Are they making a good job of it and what sort of results are they getting? How are you going to differentiate yourself in the social media space? 4.
Develop tactics - What resources do you have? What platforms and tactics are you going to employ to achieve each objective? How are you going to collect and share data? 5.
Set metrics - What does success look like? What metrics are you going to attach to each objective? What is the baseline? How are you going to measure and track results? 6.
Develop brand personality and messaging - What is your brand personality? What is your value proposition? How are you going to communicate them? 7.
Develop content plan - What core topics are you going to focus on? Which media are you going to use (text, video, audio)? Which channels are you going to use to distribute your content? How are you going to use your content? What is the style and tone of voice you are going to use? What keywords are you going to focus on? How often are you going to publish? 8.
Define roles and resources - Who needs to be involved? Who is going to be your company voice? Who is going to follow up online enquiries? How much time do they have to commit? What training will they require? What other resources will you need - e.
g.
web development? Software? 9.
Guidelines and training - What tools and knowledge will your team need? What are the rules of engagement? Who owns the profiles? What content can be shared? What are your brand/messaging guidelines? What is expected of your staff? How are you going to communicate the strategy and guidelines? 10.
Ongoing management - Who will have ultimate responsibility for social media activity? How are you going to monitor and track progress? Your strategy doesn't have to be particularly elegant but it must answer all of the key questions set out above if you want to be confident you are focusing on the right audiences, using the most appropriate media and have the key metrics in place to monitor effectiveness.
but not generating any additional traffic or leads chances are you've made a very common mistake - not having a clearly thought through social media strategy.
There are 3 main reasons why it's essential to have a strategy in place before taking the social media plunge: 1.
If you don't set clear goals you are likely to waste a lot of time and energy doing things that don't support your business objectives and without SMART objectives you won't be able to measure your "return on engagement" or decide what priority to give to social media activities.
2.
If you haven't done your research and worked out who your targets are, where they're hanging out online, what sort of content they're interested in and respond to you won't know where to focus your efforts.
3.
Social media requires a long term commitment.
It's not something you can just pick up and then put down again whenever you're busy doing other things, so you need to be clear at the outset how much time you are going to have to invest to get the results you want and be sure that you can sustain the necessary level of input on a consistent basis.
Here are the 10 key steps involved in developing a social media strategy: 1.
Set company goals and objectives - What do you want to achieve from social media? How is it going to help you achieve your business goals? What specific measurable objectives are you going to focus on? 2.
Find your audiences - Who are your target audiences? How can you segment them? Who do you need to connect and engage with? What are they interested in? What do they respond to? Where do they hang out? Who are the key influencers? Where are the conversations taking place about your industry, business or brand? 3.
Competitor analysis - How are they using social media? Are they making a good job of it and what sort of results are they getting? How are you going to differentiate yourself in the social media space? 4.
Develop tactics - What resources do you have? What platforms and tactics are you going to employ to achieve each objective? How are you going to collect and share data? 5.
Set metrics - What does success look like? What metrics are you going to attach to each objective? What is the baseline? How are you going to measure and track results? 6.
Develop brand personality and messaging - What is your brand personality? What is your value proposition? How are you going to communicate them? 7.
Develop content plan - What core topics are you going to focus on? Which media are you going to use (text, video, audio)? Which channels are you going to use to distribute your content? How are you going to use your content? What is the style and tone of voice you are going to use? What keywords are you going to focus on? How often are you going to publish? 8.
Define roles and resources - Who needs to be involved? Who is going to be your company voice? Who is going to follow up online enquiries? How much time do they have to commit? What training will they require? What other resources will you need - e.
g.
web development? Software? 9.
Guidelines and training - What tools and knowledge will your team need? What are the rules of engagement? Who owns the profiles? What content can be shared? What are your brand/messaging guidelines? What is expected of your staff? How are you going to communicate the strategy and guidelines? 10.
Ongoing management - Who will have ultimate responsibility for social media activity? How are you going to monitor and track progress? Your strategy doesn't have to be particularly elegant but it must answer all of the key questions set out above if you want to be confident you are focusing on the right audiences, using the most appropriate media and have the key metrics in place to monitor effectiveness.