How do I build my social media strategy?

In short like you would build any other marketing strategy.

1. Why am I doing this in the first place?

First you need to establish what it is that you want. Would you like more leads into your website, to expand your audience on Twitter or Facebook, build a network of local business prospects or publicise an upcoming event?

2. Who are my target audience?

Once you’ve clarified what it is that you’re trying to achieve, the next question is who is my target audience and where do they hang out? So if you are a local arts and crafts company looking for direct customers and some local resellers, you need to decide what type of social media they use. Probably Facebook and Twitter will be most popular for the consumers and to target specific resellers, LinkedIn and local business retail groups.

If you are a company who only deals with large construction firms and project management companies, you need to think what type of social media might they use and where do they hang out. Mostly LinkedIn also easy to target specific companies and individuals and maybe Twitter.

3. What resources do I have?

Once you’ve decided what it is you want and who you wish to target, you might ask yourself how much time and money do I have to spend. If you have a limited budget you might decide to only use free social media sites that you can manage internally. If you have a little more money you might want to decide whether it would be best to get some help and outsource some of the responsibility. Set yourself a time limit so that you can measure the effect of your campaign.

4. What’s my plan?

Planning is vital. It is all too easy to start using social media tools without a proper plan or strategy and then wonder where your time went and why you have very little to show for all your effort. If you create a schedule, delegate some of the time it takes to the people best suited to using the different social media tools available.

5. How do I know whether it’s been a success?

Once you’ve reached your deadline – whether this is a month or six weeks, you need to think – how many web leads did I used to receive into my website? How many leads do I receive now? Or have the number of phone enquiries improved? Do I have more facebook Likes? Etc. Where do I rank in Google? Has this improved?

6. Test and repeat.

Once you have carried out your initial social media marketing experiment, see what worked well, what didn’t work – change it and repeat. Getting your Social Media Marketing right for your company is a learning curve, but you have to start somewhere to see if it could work for you. With many things, it’s a case of seeing what works best and persisting with these.

Social Media is not a mystical, science where just a few experts hold all the answers. Social Media owes a lot of it’s success to how free, easy and generally accessible it is.

Thanks to Paul Brindley http://twitter.com/midsinsolvency who recommended this Blog Topic at our Professional Panel meeting on Monday, I hope it answers your question Paul?

To everyone else if you’re still not sure – please give me a call on 01905 23902, I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.