Your social media strategy should always start with an understanding of what social media is, what you want to get out of it, and how you’re going to get it.  If you don’t know the answer to those three questions, STOP – you’re not ready start.  As with any goal, you need a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish, then you can plan your path to get there.

So what are your social media goals, what do you want to get out of it?  What does success look like to you, is it to:

• Increase customer base?
• Build overall brand awareness?
• Educate your customers?
• Reach new customers?
• Drive more traffic?
• Increase sales?

Before putting your social media strategy in place and heading down the path to achieve your goals, we need to develop an understanding of what they mean, and how we’re going to reach them.

So let’s talk about a few concepts and key points we need to keep in mind as we move forward:

• Results from Social Media Marketing (SMM) take effort, time and consistency.
• Always keep the big picture in mind to ensure you stay focused and keep your momentum going.  Social Media (SM) is incredibly addicting so keep track of the amount of time you spend on it, if you drift, remember your goals and bring yourself back.
• SM is not selling, it’s listening and engaging.  Nothing turns people off more than somebody jumping up and down saying “look at me, buy my stuff…buy my stuff!”  Be relevant, be credible and build relationships, but also be transparent.  In other words, don’t pretend you not selling something, because you are, and you should state that…just don’t be pushy and bring something more to the table than just your product or service.
• Don’t take what isn’t personal, personal.  People will come and go, some will love you, and some won’t.  Respond to everybody but look at every comment or post as an opportunity to be relevant and credible.

You’ve defined your online objectives, now let’s make achieving those objective simple by breaking SMM down into three major parts; establishing, communicating and listening.

Stay tuned for Part 2 — Establishing your Brand

I worked in IT for over a decade and still, there’s nothing I love more than spending the day in front of my computer. I am a very social person but in my day to day life, if I can communicate with people without actually having to speak to them I’m thrilled! I can get my point across with a bulleted email, a short post on Facebook or an update on Twitter in less than 140 characters…a phone call can take hours and accomplish nothing more.

In hopes of promoting my new business, I’ve spent months developing my “brand” and presence in the Social Media universe. In the process I have made some great contacts, built solid relationships and have learned the power and benefits of Social Networking. To know that I can connect with millions of people all over the world for free is truly amazing and what’s even more amazing is that more businesses are not taking advantage of it.

While I was making friends and familiarizing the world with my name, I was not building my business.  So I read more articles, followed more people, and posted more often but I still wasn’t getting the publicity I wanted and needed.  Then I asked myself…what is my target audience and how can I get in front of them to pitch my business? Well, since my target audience is local small businesses the best way to introduce my services to them would be to meet them face to face…what a concept!

The next day I scoured our local paper looking for business socials coming up and saw that the Chamber of Commerce was having a mixer.  I called a couple friends that are active in the community and asked if they would meet me there to introduce me to anybody they knew, to my delight they both agreed! At that mixer I met a gentleman that pretty much spends all his time at local business events and asked if I could tag along to some of them, amazingly he also agreed.  I spent the next two weeks going to mixers almost nightly and was introduced to what seemed like half the town.  I traded cards with people, generally asking questions about their business and always followed up with an email simply saying “it was a pleasure to meet you last night at the…”.

The response to my efforts was immediate and surprising.  I’d gotten farther with a few handshakes than I did with hundreds of hours on-line.  The phenomenon brought to mind how authors do signing tours after their books hit the shelves, and movie stars run the talk show circuit when their movies debut.  So why do they do that, if we like them we’re going to buy the book or see their movie regardless right?  They do it because they want us to connect with ‘them’ and not the character they’re playing or writing about.  Business is no different, we want to build a relationship with the people we do business with and we need to develop a trust.

So am I saying social networking isn’t worthwhile? Not at all, I’m saying you have to do both.  With social media you have a voice that spans the world enabling you to connect to people you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, but nothing will ever replace the power of a handshake and a smile.