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Do you have a well though out social media strategy?

I’m baffled when I talk to people and they say they spend hours on social media everyday but they don’t see any results from it. When I ask them: What is your social media strategy? they look at me with the proverbial deer in the headlights look.

Your social media strategy should be predicated by your goals. Here are a few simple questions you should ask yourself before embarking on a social media campaign:

• Are you looking for new sales leads?
• Do you want to stay connected with your current customers?
• Are you trying to get more people to come into your stores?
• Are you trying to increase your Web traffic?
• Are you trying to raise brand awareness?
• Which social media channel is your demographics using?
• How often do you plan to post fresh and relevant content?

By answering a few simple questions, you can hone in on a strategy that will work for your purposes and you’ll feel much better about pursuing avenues that lead you to that end.

Another useful strategy is to merely connect with people and thereby raise your brand awareness, increase your Web traffic, promote word of mouth or be seen as the authority on a subject. If you take this approach, don’t expect immediate sales because your goal is to broaden your network and get your name out there.

Positioning your business for success in social media takes strategizing and time dedication. Monitor your analytics to see where you’re being successful and where you need to make adjustments to your strategy. Starting a social media marketing campaign is exciting but it should not be taken lightly. You’ll get much better results if you have a well planned social media strategy from the beginning.

If you think it’s time for your company to get a social media strategy, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media efforts and give you feed back on how to make it work for your company.

Let’s face it, it takes times to wade through the massive amount of information that’s available for us to read on-line and it’s time consuming to cut through the clutter and get to the actual stuff that may help us out. There are so many different social media outlets that keeping up with all of them will bog you down. How do you know if social media is really worth the time you invest in it?

If you spend two hours a day on Twitter and Facebook, that’s 25 percent of your day. How can you ensure that you’re going to get a good ROI on your time spent? Here are a couple of suggestions that may help you decide if you’re going in the right direction:

­Have a strategy
Don’t just put your company on the new social media site of the day just to have your name out there. Have a strategy first. Do you want to increase sales? Do you want to increase Web traffic? Do you want to raise brand awareness?

Figure out your demographics
If your audience is younger, than maybe Facebook would be a better resource for you but if your audience is more business people, then LinkedIn should be where you focus your time. If your target demographic is women, then Pinterest would be where you should focus your time as it has a huge following among women.

­Focus on marketing your brand
Don’t expect immediate sales from social media because that’s not going to happen. Your focus should be on marketing your brand as opposed to direct sales. The goal here is to connect with people and create a network, boost traffic to your site, connect with customers, make relationships with people and get your company name out there.

A good way to keep your social media current is to engage a couple of your  employees in participating and persuading them to make it a priority, therefore contributing to your company’s social media becomes a part of their day. If you do this, be sure you set guidelines on how much time they should spend on it and what the message should be.

Blogging and social media are here to stay, like it or not. With so many resources available out there and so many people making those resources work for them, the question is not whether social media is worth your time, but how are you going to organize your time to make social media work for you.

If you think it’s time for your company to get a social media strategy, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media efforts and give you feed back on how to make it work for your company.

While the majority of B-to-B marketers are now using social media as part of their marketing efforts, they are still exploring how to integrate social with search and measured results, according to an exclusive study by BtoB and Business.com. The study, “The Impact of Social Media Search” was based on an online survey of 464 b-to-b marketers conducted July 1-16th. The survey was designed to explore how marketers are integrating social media with search marketing and discovered what types of measurable impact each channel is having on the other. Among the key findings: More than half of those surveyed list “improved search results” as a top goal for social media marketing.

Social Marketing Budgets Up
The survey found that 29% of marketers plan to boost their budgets for social media this year, and 56% plan to provide additional resources for social media. When asked how much of their online marketing budget will go toward social media this year, 35% said 1%-5%; 21% said 6% – 10%; 8% said 11% – 15%.

Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director at Avaya Inc said 15% of his online marketing budget will go to social media. Dunay said “I believe that many companies use social media incorrectly. They are constantly asking about ROI, which is an indication to me that they are taking a one-way, let’s communicate and build a fan base approach. Our approach is to better connect with our existing customers.”

For more information about how a social media strategy will work for your company. Find us on facebook at: hadfield communications.