Contributing to social media for business is all the rage at the moment. It's hard to get through a day without some unsolicited email, phone call or the like, offering to sort out your social media.
However, just as with anything else in business it's important to take a step back before diving in. Of course, there's not a huge level of difficulty in posting a few messages on FaceBook. But is that where your customers are?
It's easy to waste a lot of time slavishly broadcasting multiple updates on several social media channels, so you should at least start by asking two questions...
- Why am I proposing to do this? Could be:
- To engage with customers
- To attract new customers
- To improve service
- To build awareness & influence
- To improve search engine rankings
- Where am I going to have the most impact?
- First find out where your customers & prospects are
Without thinking about these questions as a minimum you'll probably be wasting your time.
The other thing to avoid is spreading yourself too thin. Should you decide to work with multiple social media channels, make sure you have the resources to do this effectively and promptly.
In fact, in the early stages it's best to start with just one channel, building up your following there before extending your reach further.