The number one reason why small business entrepreneurs don’t use social media is because they don’t know where to start. Do I jump into Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, SEO, YouTube, Yelp, Digg, and on and on? What do I do first? What will get the greatest return? What is the most efficient use of my time?
These are really good questions. And they are ones that we have tackled head-on in our Get In The Game Guide. It’s 10 easy steps to get you up and running in your social media marketing campaign. And the list doesn’t start with Facebook! Like any campaign, you have to get your fundamentals down. If you don’t know what your brand strategy is, then you are guaranteed to waste all social media and any marketing dollars or efforts. Your brand is your promise you make to prospects that best fits their needs in a relevant and differentiated way. This leads to engaging prospects, converting to customers and ongoing loyalty…all good things.
The guide also illustrates what strategies you literally do once and they keep on working for you, versus what social media marketing tactics are necessary to put a regular drum beat of effort behind. Blogging, Tweeting and participation on other blogs or groups are just some of these examples.
In the end, there is a giant world of social media opportunities that are out there, but a vast majority of them don’t make good business sense. So that you have valuable insights into what does make sense, posted below is the table of contents for our Getting In The Game Guide.
And remember one thing, social media may not cost a lot, but your expectations shouldn’t be that it’s a free ride either. As long as you are smart about your social media strategy, it won’t be a big black hole of time, but a productive business tool.
