In this ever-adaptive and increasingly connected age, the demand to use social media in the business world has grown substantially. This may not be news to those who have been paying attention to current marketing, advertising, and public relations trends. However, in this quest to become more accessible to your audience, it is easy to lose sight of why you are using social media in the first place.
When not utilized properly, social media can fall by the wayside and become stale, stagnant, and irrelevant to an audience, therefore defeating the purpose of dedicating time and energy to these efforts. But if utilized properly, social media can keep your target markets informed, up to date, and in the loop with whatever your business may be planning.
Here are some tips to help keep your social media relevant to your business’s goals and your audience’s interests.
Develop a strategy.
Like any traditional marketing or advertising campaign, you need to create a strategy first. Whether it is bolstering your brand image, raising awareness of a cause or event, or simply keeping your audience informed about upcoming sales and promotions, a sound strategy will pave the way for selecting the types of tactics you will want to employ. A tip to remember when creating a strategy is to keep it SMART. The more Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Framed the goal is, the more likely it will be effective. Knowing that social media is just a tactic in the overall strategy and not the strategy itself is also an important concept to grasp.
Do your research.
Knowing which social media tools cater to your target market is a good way to start. As Jacqueline spoke about in a previous post, MySpace is rebranding itself as an entertainment-focused site as of November. Knowing that they have ventured away from their traditional route and are focusing more on this niche might help you decide whether or not this is a useful tool to use in your social media arsenal. Another example of this is that 2009 and 2010 statistics showed that Baby Boomers were the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook. Knowing who is using what type of social media can greatly influence your use of it. Some good questions to ask yourself before selecting what types of social media to use is: “How does this form of social media fit into our strategy”, “Who are we targeting”, and “How will this help us reach our goals.”
Evaluate.
Many social media sites have their own progress tracking tools. For example, if you create a Facebook page it will give you updates as to how many visitors you had, how many people joined, or commented or mentioned you in posts, etc. On Twitter, you can see how many people are following you. Along with those built-in evaluation tools. It is also a good idea to compare how much more relevant your brand has become through these mediums by other ways such as traditional surveys (comparing before and after) that can help you quantify the impact of this tactic on your general strategy.
Learn.
Finally, after all is said and done take what you have evaluated and learned from it. See what worked and what didn’t. This way you can make changes here or there in your social media usage and figure out the optimal way to use this great tool. Learn not only from yourself but from others. Keeping up with how others use social media trends can be a great example of how you can use it as well.
