If you have a business and want to jump into the social media world, here are a few tips that I’ve learned from working on this in my career with clients.
Social is forever. If you want to incorporate social media into how you communicate with clients, first think about what kind of conversation you want to have with your customers and then learn all you can about the major social media players. Then try your hand at one for awhile to get the hang of having that conversation (and not just selling). Then, add others. The key thing to remember is that when you start, you really can’t stop. If you do, it reduces your credibility with your customers and they may think you don’t even exist anymore.
Social takes a lot of time. And while you have a full time job either running your business or marketing for someone else’s business, this social stuff could eventually take up another full time position. If you don’t have the budget or the time, you need to make a plan. When, how, and what to post. Almost like a mini editorial calendar like the magazines use. And there are applications that let you load up posts in advance. You should try to control as many aspects of social or it could control you.
You can’t control social. Yes, this contradicts the above. There’s a level of flexibility you need in order to stay on top of what other conversations are happening in your circle. Like I said, it’s a conversation – if you only post things and don’t react to others, you’re not having one. So while you have a plan for the starting of conversations, you have to remember to set up periods of time in your day to go back to the conversations to follow-up and find other conversations to enter into.
Now that you have a handle on the sheer time and energy that goes into being social, I’ll follow up in an upcoming post on how to leverage those conversations and potentially incorporate it into your marketing.
Patti is still learning 