SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS FOR BUSINESS… YOUR PLAN OF ATTACK!Written by; Jerry Nihen

• There are thousands of social networking platforms out

there, and about a dozen or so of the “popular” ones that receive the most traffic.

-A business owner might feel in over their head when first

figuring out what they need to do to develop an adequate

plan of attack for their social media campaign.

The first and most important tool your business needs before launching a social

media campaign is a plan of attack

The first and most important tool your business needs before launching a social media campaign is a plan of attack. As you work on that plan,

I want to give you critical tools you’ll need before you get started. These are guidelines, and you will want to shape them to suit your own company.

NUMBER ONE; Make sure you stay involved in your social media marketing campaign. Even if you choose to hire out, make sure you are involved in what’s being posted, what’s being promoted, and most importantly, the reputation of your brand online. Do not simply hire a “social media agency” to do all your posting for you.

If you choose to hire someone, hire someone who has a plan for integrating social media into an extensive online marketing campaign, which should go hand-in-hand with your offline marketing campaign.

Don’t believe that you cannot measure ROI on social media. I cover measuring ROI and other forms of analytics in -- social media training program, and it is extremely important that you are able to track what is going on with your campaign.

Don’t believe that you have to set up on as many social networking platforms as possible. Not only will you burn yourself out, but different businesses in different niches will have varied results on social media platforms.

A good rule of thumb is a B2B business should set up on LinkedIn, and a B2C starts with Facebook. After you spend a little time learning the ropes, you can move on to other platforms.

Quality Content + Viral Marketing = Success on social media. Focus on creating good information you can share with your followers, and allow the

viral nature of these websites to spread your brand. Social media

is about connecting and meeting your customers on this

very online world we live in.

Listen and engage with your clients and customers. Too many platforms ONLY post links to content and content, and then try and do a pitch on one of their products or services.

Don’t be that company.

Spend some time posting and learning about what your customers are doing and interested in. The better you know your customers, the more you know how you can help them (and sell to them).

• Plan your time on social media. Set aside a brief time each day that you are willing to focus only on

interacting with your clients, and posting new content for them.

-This can start out with as little as 10-15 minutes a day, and grow

from there. If you don’t plan your time, you will not actively engage

in social media.

These steps are a good starting point for creating a social media plan. Take some time to plan out and figure out how you are going to tackle the social media beast.

Once you’ve figured out where to start, and what you’re going to do, you’ll find it’s a lot easier to use social media platforms.

THE END.

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