What’s Your Social Media Strategy?

Social media is one of the most important marketing tools for small and medium-sized businesses today. Almost 90 percent of marketers will tell you that a social media presence is critical to the success of their business. So it’s no wonder that social media is where small and medium-sized businesses spend the majority of their marketing dollars.

Social media is also becoming an important player when it comes to SEO. Recent changes to Google’s algorithm mean that the more active you are on social media, the higher your search engine rankings.

If social media is so essential to the success of a business, then why is it that so many businesses do not have a social media strategy in place? For starters, many marketers simply do not know what a social media strategy actually entails. They also mistakenly believe that simply sharing helpful information or updating their followers on new products or services is an effective social media strategy.

Unfortunately for these businesses, a solid social media strategy involves much more than just slapping information up on a social media site or two. Instead, a successful social media strategy involves engaging and interacting with your target audience while establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry. So how is this accomplished? The following steps are necessary to establish an effective social media strategy:

1. Research and understand your particular target audience
2. Use a distinct voice to compose posts and updates, as well as to interact with your followers
3. Monitor your sites so that you are able to respond to comments and feedback from your followers in a timely manner
4. Put measurable goals in place to accurately and regularly assess the success of your social media efforts
5. Create a publication calendar and schedule of posts

Social media can be overwhelming for the newbie and just because someone has a personal Facebook or Twitter account, that doesn’t make him or her an expert in social media. Instead, it is often best to seek help from an outside source to make sure that you are putting your social media marketing dollars to use wisely.