Most business owners feel reluctant to join the social media bandwagon. Most of those who even do don’t post and engage their customers frequently. For some business owners the excuse is time, while for others, it is the belief that social media can’t add much to their bottom-line. Are you a business owner still contemplating adopting social media or you are already in but you don’t feel you can go any further? Then this article is for you. Let me take you through how to transform your business using social media.
To determine your social media strategy, you need a template. This is what it should look like:
- Why do I need Social Media?
- Who are my audience?
- Where are they?
- What do I want to tell them?
- How am I going to tell them?
- What content am I going to create?
- How often am I going to post?
- Which tools am I going to use to measure my success?
- How do I maintain a relationship with my customers?
Why do you need Social Media?
Your reason for adopting social media may be one or more of the following:
- Increase sales using social mediaImprove customer acquisition using social media
- Increase brand awareness and affinity
- Provide better customer service via social media
- Harness innovation and come up with great ideas for the business using social media
Whatever your reason for adopting social media, you have to clearly state it, because these reasons will guide your social media activities. They will be a sort of social media map to guide you through the confusing world of social media.
Who are your audience?
Who are the people who need to know about your business? What age group do they belong to? What do they do online? How do they spend their money? Can they buy online? These are questions you should look to answer. Before sending out a message, you need to know your audience to make your delivery effective.
Where are they?
Where can your potential customers, existing customers and brand advocates be found online? Not every group can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Your own audience may be found on forums or blogs. Discover their location before you send out your message.
What do you want to tell them?
Now you have to decide what to tell your audience. Warning though: people don’t like being sold at. You want to make sure you are doing something of value for them instead of pushing your product in their faces. If you are a business that sells mobile phones for instance, you want to let people know things like: Why one phone model is better than the other, the features and functions of several mobile phones, discounts available and exclusive offers. These are things of value. This is not to say you won’t advertise your product but you can add value 90% of the time and sell your products 10% of the time. This is a way to gain customers who trust your judgement and buy from you.
How are you going to tell them?
Take into consideration the tone and voice of your message. Do you want it to be fun and laid-back or formal and business-like? Again, this all depends on your type of audience.
What content are you going to create?
Text is not the only type of content. There are several other types of content like podcasts, videos, pictures, and presentation slides. Finding out what type of content your audience want is important. For instance, you don’t want to send out bulky articles when you have a bunch of teenagers on your hands. They don’t like school already.
How often are you going to post?
Determine how often you will send out content and let your audience know. Sending out posts inconsistently will make you lose audience members. If possible put the times you are available on your Facebook and Twitter profiles. Let your audience be able to depend on you.
Which tools am I going to use to measure my success?
For social media, you must know what success looks like, or else you are just wasting precious business hours. Decide your success metrics. Is it getting to 5,000 followers on Twitter, or getting 10,000 people to read your blog? Is it getting a certain amount of sales from social media or getting a number of people to become your brand advocates? Decide what success looks like and what tools you will use to measure.
How do you maintain a relationship with your customers?
What will you do to keep your customers coming back? Is it writing birthday messages on their Facebook walls or by consistently adding value to their social media experience? Whatever it is, make sure your audience love it.
I wish you success in business.
I am @opesays on Twitter.
