Are you active on social media and yet feel it is very hard to keep up with all the new opportunities that pop up every single day?
Welcome to the reality of everyone who commits to getting the most out of his or her company’s participation on social media.
(This is a guest post by Phyllis Zimbler Miller. More information about her below.)
This proliferation of social media news has two main sources.
#1 – Network changes.
This first source is changes in how the social media behemoths, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, are continually making major changes to their own sites.
For an example, while many people still use the words “Fan Page” in referring to the page function that Facebook has set up for businesses, Facebook has dropped the word “fan.” The correct term now is just “Page” for the kind of page where you “like” the page. (Yes, this is very confusing, which is my point.) And often I find companies erroneously using for their business a personal profile page (the kind where you “friend” the page rather than “like” the page – or “join” a group page), which is in violation of Facebook’s terms.
#2 – Application changes.
The second source is the new apps and sites and opportunities that appear every day. Some of these can be found by perusing your Twitter stream if you are following Internet marketing tech people or by the blog posts you read. Still others you might come across by a Google search or a tip from a friend. The truth is that, even if you could know all the new social media opportunities, it is unlikely that you would have time to sign up for and participate on all of these.
What’s the answer to this overload of online opportunities?
Prioritization.
You must know what your online goals are: driving people to your Facebook Page, getting people to sign up for your email marketing list, encouraging people to try a free sample of your product or download your free report, or any number of other goals?
Free or paid?
Second is deciding whether you want to spend money on such outreach opportunities as Facebook ads or whether you want to stick with only free social media. If you do decide to spend money on social media ads, then it’s a good idea to have in place a way to measure results.
Brand / personality.
Third, your priorities for social media involvement should be based on your own personality and abilities. For example, if you are the kind of person who plans to spend 10 minutes on Twitter and then looks up at the clock only to discover two hours have gone by, you might not want to participate on Twitter. Or at least not participate on Twitter unless you have some built-in time constraints. (An alarm clock could do the trick.)
Strategic planning.
Finally, you should not put all your eggs in one basket. While there is no absolute social media marketing law that says you must be active on such-and-such social media site, you should at least be on a couple of different sites in order to interact with different groups of people.
Thus you might continuously upload new short (1-2 minutes) videos to your YouTube channel and also be a guest blogger in order to both interact with people who like videos for their information and with people who like to read their information
Bottom line?
However you prioritize your social media activities, do commit to the top activities continuously over a long time period.
Do not expect that just a couple of weeks of social media activity will pay off. You should be in this for the long haul, just as you are with your business.
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing. Download the company’s free report “5 Tips for Staying Top of Mind With Your Prospective Target Markets” at https://www.millermosaicllc.com/los-angeles-social-media-consultant/