When getting started with social media for business, it can be difficult to know where to focus your efforts for maximum efficiency – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. Here are 5 pointers to get you started:
1.
Decide who you want to communicate with
It sounds obvious, but different segments of your audience
will hang out on different social media platforms. A first step should be to
consider which segment of your audience you wish to communicate with. Segment
using a range of variables that you already have data on such as age; gender;
location; past purchasing behaviour, and so on.
2.
Find out where your target audience is already
active
Analyse your stakeholder database and CRM system to find out
which social media platforms your target audience are already actively using.
Consider taking your messages to where they already are, instead of expecting
them to come to a new channel that you set up. This can also give you some
useful breathing space whilst you learn the ins and outs of managing social
media.
3.
Be current
Examine whether the platforms you are considering are
increasing or decreasing in popularity for your target audience. Do you
remember articles like this - highlighting the number of young people moving
away from Facebook (11 million since 2011)- http://business.time.com/2014/01/15/more-than-11-million-young-people-have-fled-facebook-since-2011/
?
4.
Assess your capacity to manage different
platforms
Fully engaging on social media can become a time consuming
business. Assess how much resource the channels you are considering will cost
you on a day-to-day basis:
a.
How often do you intent to publish information?
b.
How many responses do you anticipate receiving?
c.
Who will manage the responses?
d.
How will responses be managed out of working
hours?
5.
Listen first
Before entering the social world, take time to listen to
existing conversations. This can be very valuable in enabling you to understand
what topics your target audience is currently interested in and how you can
piggy back on these.
Listening will enable you to assess sentiment around your
brand and decide how to amplify or manage these feelings when you open your own
channels.
By listening to existing conversations, you will quickly be
able to identify who your greatest ambassadors and critics are online. You can then
evaluate how influential these people are to inform how much effort you should
spend in engaging with them.