crafting a stronger social media strategy for your business

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Crafting a Stronger Social Media Strategy ForYour BusinessBy LUCIA SASTRE | OCTOBER 21, 2012

Are you having a hardtime integrating SocialMedia into yourbusiness plan? Fret nomore. Craft a SocialMedia strategy thatworks according toyour industry andresources using thiswriting as a guide.

First of all, it’simportant to state the

impending problem. Many businesses’ Social Media efforts fail because theirsocial media strategy lacks a coherent structure, strategy and even a genuinecommitment.

As a result, when they fail to see any positive changes, they get discouraged and just let theiraccounts wither.

Sound familiar?

The good thing is that crafting a realistic Social Media strategy is now a possibility. It’s not inthe amount of time you put in, nor the number of Social Media accounts you create. Thesecret lies in the organization of your plan and ideas as well as in your ability to conductproductive competitive research.

But most importantly, creating an effective Social Media plan comes from patience andperseverance. You cannot expect to create a Facebook account and have 100+ likes the nextday. Social Media takes a certain amount of effort and strategy, as well as time.

Most of us are driven by instant gratification. Therefore, before you start constructing yourSocial Media plan, take into account that this might not happen the first couple of months, butreassure yourself that you’ll be working towards that goal.

Commitment

First and foremost, you must make a genuine commitment to your Social Media plan. Myrecommendation is to delegate this task to someone in your Marketing team who canincorporate it in his/her everyday schedule. It’s important to keep track of changes. Therefore,this individual must do more than just post material to a Social Media site. Have a scheduleready to record your Social Media updates and report on them at your staff meetings. Givingpriority and attention to your Social Media efforts will ensure that your staff participates andintegrates it into their daily schedule.

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goals with your team. Come up with a master list and forward it to everyone in the office. Setup prizes and giveaways for those employees who share the most or who obtain the mostlikes in their shares. Motivate your employees to participate by giving out food vouchers, giftcards or simple recognition. Remember that a great Social Media campaign starts from withinyour walls.

You can also work on reaching your Social Media goals with these tips:

To a business owner, ROI is the most important aspect when embarking on a SocialMedia campaign. Unfortunately, this is often hard to measure. Instead, focus on your fanbase, daily activity and mentions. These will eventually bear fruit in sales.If your goal is to reach a certain amount of likes in your Social Media profiles, state it. Forinstance, you have 180 likes on Facebook but your goal is to get to 200, include postssuch as “Help us reach our goal of 200 likes!” and then provide something of value like aweekly joke or an interesting story. Why does this work? It’s just psychology. We arebound to feel compassion and to help those who work hard. In addition, many peoplewill respond well to requests for help and your openness is asking directly what you areseeking.Pay attention to reviews. Sign up for an account on Yelp or Citysearch if you haven’talready and focus on those sites. Thank those customers who gave you approvingreviews and apologize to those who where unhappy with your services. You couldpotentially turn them into loyal clientele.

Here’s an example

Emphasize giveaways. I can’t stress this enough. People like free stuff, especially whenthey have to enter a name and an e-mail to qualify for a chance to get it. If your prizesare average, don’t expect for everyone to jump at once.

Here’s how Falken Tire executes a giveaway,

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Avoid posting:Commercials. Your audience is looking for conversation and insight.Forged Comments. Bragging about how great your company is can often befrowned upon. It won’t get you very far.Sales statistics. That should be restricted to internal reporting. Your audiencewants insights on new approaches, news stories, events, etc., not your sales goalsor your statistics

According to the Social Media Examiner, “A good rule of thumb is to talk about yourcustomers and your industry 80% to 90% of the time, and then discuss your ownbusiness. That means you need to start a blog, write white papers, explore trends,release case studies and create infographics.”Practice smart posting. Posting material like a maniac will only end up overwhelmingyour audience, eventually driving them away. Instead, let at least an hour pass betweenposts. Never let more than a week pass without posting.You can schedule your posts with the Buffer application. It guarantees a reasonableamount of time between postings. You can download the Firefox or Chrome extensions,and trust me when I say this will make your employees’ lives easier.

Take a look,

It’s better to focus on one Social Media site and make it dazzle than to create multiplesites and give them average attention. Look at this as if it was a relationship. The moreyou give, the better the end result. Well, at least most of the time.

Time Management

Make a schedule that is visible and easy to manage. In other words, it helps to cross tasks offbecause it gives you an instant feeling of accomplishment. If you are in and out of the office,another way to manage your Social Media tasks is to create a system of alarms and updates. For this you can use Memo to Me. This program allows you to record and save alarms, whichare sent to your e-mail minutes prior to its due time.


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User Engagement

You can post constant material and have the most interesting leads, but without userengagement you can kiss your Social Media goals goodbye. Taking part in Social Media isoften about usefulness, help and advice. How can you be useful to your audience? What canyou provide for them?

Those are questions you must ask yourself when delegating tasks and creating newapproaches. I’m not saying you must stare at your Twitter account like a hawk, but take sometime out of your day to respond and interact with your customers. For this, you can alsocreate alarms with Memo to Me. Another option is to have your Tweets/Facebook/Google+likes sent to your e-mail. Save those e-mails in a specific folder, and attend to it once or twicea day to demonstrate responsiveness and care.

The Biltmore Hotel in Miami has done a great job of keeping track with user engagement.

Take a peek,

You must remember that user engagement is often time sensitive. What I mean by this is thatTwitter moves at a rapid speed, which means that often Tweets can become irrelevant fast. Ifyou plan to have time restrictions, opt to spend your efforts on Facebook. Facebook updates,posts and graphics have a longer staying power.

There is no denying the importance of using social media as part of your marketing efforts. Itallows you to reach out to and interact with your audience in new and innovative ways. Theimportant thing is to have a clearly defined goal that describes exactly what you want to dowith your social media account(s). So make a commitment, work toward your goal (rememberthat it takes time!), manage your time – how long it takes you to respond to your audience,how often you add new posts and remember that user engagement is the key. Be a valuableresource of information about your industry as well as a source of entertainment.

For more help with your social media strategy or your other online marketing efforts, contactOptimum7 today for a no obligation consultation. We can help!

Written by Lucia SastreLucia is an SEO Specialist with a true passion for Social Mediaand Public Relations. She has dedicated her efforts toresearching and implementing new Marketing techniques forinnovative technological trends. Prior to her induction toOptimum7 she successfully served in the Marketing Campaigns

at Telefonica, Coastal Construction Company and Cleveland Clinic Hospital. She hasalso written for several newspapers including the South Florida Times, the BeaconNewspaper and the Examiner. Lucia graduated from Florida International Universitywith a Degree in Mass Communications and a Minor in Art. With a passion for culturesand languages, she also completed four years of French at the University of Iowa. Luciais originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but spent most of her life living in the UnitedStates, Mexico and South America. In her spare time, she is a freelance photographer,


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crafting a stronger social media strategy for your business

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