No more crying, no more complaining, no more feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t know how to “do” social media. Stop believing that the reason it’s not working is because of the type of business you have or the industry your in.
The fact of the matter is, EVERY business online today, should be using social media to build their network and grow their social influence. When you realize it’s all about interacting with people to connect and network, things will begin to change for you.
The problem is NOT the kind of business you have,
but that you do NOT have a strategy.
If you don’t have a plan BEFORE you get on Facebook and Twitter each day, you’re going to get caught up with all the stuff in your feeds and really, who has time for other people’s drama when you are busy trying to build a business…right? *wink*
I often get asked, what it is I do to build up my business using social media, so I decided to write this post to share how I do what I do!
My strategy is fairly simple. To me, a strategy is just a fancier way of saying – In order to reach my goal, this is what I NEED to do and this is HOW I need to do it. So, the strategy would be determining the “NEED” and the “HOW”.
This is what I do…
The last week of each month, I design a strategy around my primary goal and a task oriented goal. When I was first starting out and less experienced, I set weekly goals so I could track my progress easier and make changes early on if needed.
My primary goal is always the same – connect with people in my market. These are the types of people I want to get to know and eventually, do some kind of business with.
My secondary goal is task oriented based on an area of my business I wish to spend more time developing during a particular month. An example of this would be getting more traffic to my email opt-in page.
The next thing I do to assure I have adequate time to focus on my primary goal, is to set up a system that makes it easier to reach my secondary goal. I like to kind of “set it and forget”, meaning I don’t have to spend very much time at all dealing with it once it’s set up.
My system consists of my blog to promote my content, a tool called HootSuite to manage the automation of my content and marketing material, and a good old fashioned calendar to schedule in time to get on social networks like, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and do some networking.
Using my system (which varies a bit based on what I’m doing), allows me to attract the right people with my content, which then guides them to the next step in my process. This process is what will lead people through the steps to get to my secondary goal – leading them to my email opt-in page.
Having all my important content pieces pre-scheduled in HootSuite, frees up much of my time to work on my primary goal of networking.
That’s pretty much it!
This of course works best when you know who your target market is before you set your goals and when you stick with it and follow through. You have to work your plan daily and that is why you can’t neglect scheduling as a part of your system.
So, keep your social media strategy simple and soon you will see steady growth!
What do you do to keep your social media strategy simple? Let me know in the comments below…
Tamyka Washington
