Why Social Media? – In a previous blog I’ve spoken about the importance of having a clear goal of what your company is trying to achieve with their social media activities. However, it is a mistake made SO OFTEN that I think it is really important to reiterate this again. You must define what success will look like for your company, and exactly what you are trying to achieve through using social media. If you are struggling to come up with these goals, these three are a great starting point:
1) Increasing brand awareness by widening your reach
2) Increasing customer loyalty by engaging with them and offering customer support
3) Increasing sales by encouraging more people to enter the purchase journey more frequently.
Immediately, you should be asking yourself if your social media activities for your brand are supporting these goals. If not, stop and get back to the drawing board as it is unlikely you are providing the ROI on your time and effort that you are most likely required.
Not focusing enough on brand development – When you begin your social media activity it is likely you will start with very few followers in all of your portals. Engaging your audience is what social media is all about, but until you have that audience then you may essentially be shouting to an empty room.
Your first steps should be all about big wins when it comes to targeting the right demographics to engage with. Reach out to relevant larger sites, possibly partner with other brands, and definitely interview important people. Identify who has a strong existing audience and community and interact with them with the aim of bringing their audience over to you.
Another great step is interacting with top industry sites and writing a guest post for them, at the same time driving readers back to your own social media sites. Not only will you increase your audience following these steps – but you should start to generate some real traffic as well.
