How to Use Social Media for Your Business ... Successfully

by Lauren Seaton
July 15, 2015

I work with social media for a living.

This means I might use a company's social media account to drive website traffic, to increase brand awareness, to improve blog readership, and to increase followers and likes and shares.

But too often social media is used ineffictively and business owners get frustrated by poor results and "wasted" efforts.

It's time to change our expectations of social media.

Social Media is a Tool 
Social media is a constantly changing, ever-adjusting marketing tool. It’s not a quick fix. It won’t solve all your brand problems. It’s not an end to anything. And it should be used differently for every business.

Sometimes I hear business owners or managers say, “I need you to run my social media … just post to Twitter and Facebook a few times a week.”

Why? What will that do? The honest answer is very little. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and all the others, are tools to help you get somewhere. Simply being active on them is fine but that won’t necessarily produce results.

Here’s one way to be more successful.

Rather than thinking about what social media can do for you or your business, think about what you’d like to gain at a higher-level. Brand awareness? Website traffic? Blog readership? New customers?

To know how to best use social media as a tool, you must start at the beginning. And when I say beginning, I’m talking about marketing.

What’s Your Marketing Plan? 
The most influential way to use social media – in my opinion – is to incorporate it into your marketing plan. Use social media in partnership with other tools like blog platforms, customer relationship management software and email/newsletter services. Here's an example of a marketing outline:

  • Audience: Determine who you want to reach
  • Goals: These should be broad
  • Objectives: Make them SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timebound) and related to the goals
  • Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What's your angle? What do you do differently and well?
  • Content: What information do you want to share?
  • Content Promotion & Tools: Here’s where social media fits in!
  • Timeframe: Is this a marketing plan for 1 year? 6 months?
  • Evaluation: Give your plan a chance but if something truly isn’t working, then change it

The same kind of plan can be used for social media. Let’s say you are a small beer distributer located in Colorado and social media is a component of your marketing plan. For the example, I’ll use Twitter:

  • Audience: Users in Colorado who are interested in craft brewing
  • Goals: Increase brand recognition through increased Twitter following and website traffic
  • Objectives: 3-5 new followers per day (400-450 new followers over three months), 10% increase in website unique pageviews
  • Unique Selling Proposition (USP): We offer the most environmentally friendly bottling process in the state
  • Content: General brewery news, Colorado restaurant and bar news, company bottling information, drought information, etc.
  • Content Promotion & Tools: Follow all relevant Colorado breweries and stores, highlight different Colorado brewery every week, visit brewery every week and post photo on Facebook, tweet brewery-related content 2-4 times per day, tweet environment-related content 1-2 times per day, etc.
  • Timeframe: Three months
  • Evaluation: What posts got the most interest? What topics drove website traffic?

What Social Media Platform is Right for You? 
We all know Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube. But what about Ello? Ryze? Quora? Talkbiznow? Reddit? Plag**? Swarm? Ideapod?

I don’t know which platform is the best because there isn't such a thing. Finding the right social media platform might take time and a little trial and error. Don't give up on it. Social engagement can be incredibly powerful for businesses.

To determine the best platform for your business, establish your goals first. And remember who you're trying to reach. Not all audiences are using every social media platform.

LinkedIn is a good example. It isn't the place to share company social plans, kid photos or funny videos. LinkedIn is about business. So, if you want to add value by joining professional groups and conversations, LinkedIn is a good place to start.

But before you make a choice, learn as much about the platform you want to use as the audience you want to reach.

And stick to your marketing plan.

It will make the process much easier, more fun … and likely more successful!

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