A small business owner and I met the other day to discuss social media and how it can help her business. She said she was overwhelmed by all the different platforms and sites and wasn’t sure which one was the best way to go. Her perception is that social media tools are ‘soup du-jour’ and she felt as soon as she made a choice of which social media tool to use another would take its place resulting in wasted time and money and missed business opportunity.
The variety of Social Media options can be overwhelming and make each platform seem like the ‘soup du-jour’. Look at Social Media as you do any other marketing tool in your mix and chose the platform based on how it will help achieve your goals and you will have success. Social Media is no different from any other marketing tool you use to reach customers. Both marketing tools and social media platforms should be chosen based on which will most effectively reach your target audience to meet your goals with the resources you have available. How you message and how you communicate with your audience are the differences.
Commitment is Key to Avoiding Social Media Soup du-jour Syndrome
You can commit and believe in your Social Media choices if you do some work up front. That work includes taking time to set your goals and plan. No marketing tool, social media or other will succeed in helping you reach your goals if you don’t do the work up front. If you don’t, the result is you will have wasted precious time and money with little success.
Top Social Media Platforms
The top Social Media platforms can help a business meet its goals depending on the target audience and each requires different capabilities, time and resources and include; social networking, multimedia, blogs and microblogs. Some of the most popular are Facebook, (social networking site), LinkedIn (social networking site for professionals), MySpace (social networking for the creative, artists/musicians), YouTube (video sharing site), Flickr (photo and video sharing site), Mashable (Social Media news blog) and Twitter (microblog).
Follow These Basic Steps When Choosing a Social Media Platform for Your Business
- Develop your Marketing Plan
- What are your Social Media goals – these should support your Marketing goals
- Develop your Social Media Plan
- Look at and focus on the top Social Media platforms and sites as a start
- Chose the most effective of these to reach your audience and based on your capabilities and resources. Who are your customers? Do they even have a twitter account to follow your business? If not, twitter is probably not your best choice. Are you able to post blogs consistently? Do you have the resource to develop content and video to post on YouTube?
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