I’m sure you’ve heard so much advice recently about the power of social media sites and how you should be marketing your business with them.
You’ve got Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Digg, Tumblr, Stumbled Upon, Google Plus, Reddit, Pinterest and the list goes on (and on … and on … and on).
Good grief! After you’ve spent time on each of these social media sites each day, when are you meant to get any work done?
There’s no doubt about it … social media marketing is booming and is a fantastic marketing and brand-building strategy for small businesses, when used correctly.
However it should be considered one of your many marketing strategies, with a social media marketing plan making up a part of your business’ overall marketing plan.
As for which social media sites you need to be active on, I do not recommend joining every social media site you come across (and trust me, there’s literally 1000s of them!) Doing so means you’ll be spreading yourself too thin and in all honesty, not all of them are going to be relevant for your business.
What I suggest is that you find 5 or 10 social media sites that you feel comfortable with and where you’re likely to find relevant ‘contacts’. By contacts, this could be potential customers but it may also include potential colleagues, partners, mentors and other like-minded people you can learn from and share with.
Then, focus on building relationships with other members on those select sites. Remember, you’re looking for quality, not quantity. And you’re most definitely not there to sell and promote all the time.
You can find Social Media Managers now and many VAs (Virtual Assistants) also specialise in this area. So if you need help developing and implementing a plan for your business, I would encourage you to enlist the services of a professional to help you get this right.
You may even decide to outsource your social media marketing altogether. That is, you pay someone else to manage your business’ social media accounts on your behalf.
Or you may choose to develop a plan whereby you spend, let’s just say 30 minutes, each morning/afternoon on social media sites and then turn them off for the rest of the day. You’d be amazed how productive you can be during that 30 minutes if you know you have a deadline. Set an alarm if you need to.
And once you have a plan in place, it will be easier for you to connect with relevant people online, switch off to the distractions and reap the real benefits of social media.
