Promoting a self-owned small business couple of decades ago must have been a hard nut to crack. Flyers, radio promos and newspaper being the only effective source to reach out to the masses, a small business owner back then would have surely faced problems managing the funds. Separating hefty proportions for marketing purposes back must have had a significant impact on business operations.
Fortunately for present day entrepreneurs, things are not that grim at all. An amazingly effective yet unbelievably affordable mechanism for business promotion and marketing purposes is now widespread – the social media platform.
The Backdrop:
So yours is a newborn venture. With the intent to reach out to millions (hopefully), you have just created a Facebook page or a Twitter account. Naturally, you will be tempted to get a few things done, ideally in no time. You would direly want folks to ‘like’ your page or to follow you. And next, you would probably want your Facebook fan page or Twitter profile to be studded with all sort of useful stuff for the consumer base. For that, you would probably start generating content as if there’s no tomorrow: pictures, videos, links, giveaways, competitions – anything that would attract people, no holds barred.
There is nothing wrong with the said approach, except that its going to work for a limited time span, if not at all. It turns out having more of a structured approach towards the problem works way much better – a social media strategy as they call it. Presented are a few points to get you started on creating an effectual presence social media strategy for your social media channels.
1) Establish accomplishable goals:
There can’t possibly be anything more important than setting eyes on your goal, a goal that is achievable to start with. Chalk out the objectives you hope to achieve from you social media communications campaign, and examine how the said is in-line with organizational goals. Later, the concrete achievables would serve as a measure for tracking effectiveness of a particular social media channel.
2) Choose the right platforms:
Spending adequate time figuring trying to figure out the right channel what would work for your consumers is highly recommended. Sure you absolutely got to be present at Facebook and Twitter. But should that translate to saying a big no to other social media outflow streams? I don’t think so. There just might be a plethora of other promising social media channels you’re probably missing on (Pinterest, for example or Instagram). Adequate research about where exactly your consumer base dwells on the social expanse has to be an integral part of your social media strategy.
3) Ascertaining your social tone:
Setting up a social media stream sure is the appropriate time to take a moment and decide on what tone would prevail at your channel instances. It is you who has to choose to whether to be corporate (just like IBM, the Big Blue) or semi-professional (HTC for example) in your tone. You may as well choose to be informal. Stick with whatever tone that suits you – just be sure to decide in the beginning.
4) Disperse captivating content:
And now the part you thought is just about all that actually matters. You were right. Generating engaging content is the core factor that not only keeps your fan base intact but also serves as the core driving force to expand the follower base. The content alone is not the only factor that will carve out a brand image. The content dispersal frequency needs to be fine tuned as well. Definitely worth spending some decent effort.
That’s about it for starters. The tip set is not exhaustive but should serve well for small business owners ready to take a plunge into the whirlpool of social media channels for accomplishing promotional goals. Happy strategizing !
