Social Media Strategy for Small Business – Next Step Beyond The Blog
February 25th, 2010 by Rich JacobsonWelcome back to the 8th episode of our informative series,
“Developing a Social Media Strategy”
If you’ve missed out on the previous installments, here they are:
“Social Media is a Conversation, not an Advertisement!” “The ‘WHY’ of Social Media?“
“Taking AIM” “Social Media Sushi“ “5 Keys to Having a Killer Blog!“
“Top 10 Ways to Feed Your Blog.” “What’s in Your Social Media Tool Belt?“
In this next part of our series, we’re going to take a bold step….
“Beyond The Blog”
At this point, we’re going to assume that you have a blog and that you’ve been diligently posting good quality content there on a regular basis. The content that you generate can be one of the most valuable and effective marketing resources that you have. Think of your blog as the publishing house where your wealth of professional knowledge, advice, and experience is skillfully formatted and attractively packaged for consumption by your intended audience.
Your Blog Content is Like Cow Manure
In order for your valued blog content to be most effective and achieve its fullest impact, it needs to be spread around. The next successive step or key in your social media strategy is selecting the best tools/methods to spread/push/distribute/syndicate links to your prized content, thereby exposing it to the largest audience possible. Fortunately, given the tremendous amount of inter-connectivity being offered across multiple platforms, we have an abundance of viable venues to choose from.
Before we identify a few of those venues, allow me to make a couple of helpful suggestions as you’re evaluating potential sites:
Push Come to Shove
Don’t push or syndicate your content to a site unless you intend on actively participating on that site. In other words, don’t just automatically post a link from your blog article to your Twitter account if you never or rarely engage in actual conversations there. As with traditional ‘Interruption-Style’ marketing/advertising, your links simply become elevator noise to be ignored.
If You Blogged in the Woods, Would Anyone Listen?
Ensure that the platforms you choose are relevant for your content subject matter as well as your intended audience. Few things can be more frustrating than spending an inordinate amount of time and energy attempting to converse with a brick wall. Do the people you’re hoping to attract through your writing frequent the targeted site regularly? Are they actually being exposed to your articles? Obviously, this is where some good analytics need to be consistently employed and evaluated. We’ll discuss that in more detail later.
Go to Where the Conversations Are
While there are the obvious choices of highly popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter. there may be other smaller regional or even local platforms you can access as well. Does your local newspaper have a web presence with community bloggers? Or perhaps the Chamber of Commerce or Regional Visitors/Convention Bureau? Even hyper-local Neighborhood Blogs/networks are becoming more and more popular. You need to have an intimate knowledge of the ‘webscape’ of your specific market area and know what platforms/networks people are frequenting to connect and converse.
Stay Focused and Disciplined
When accessing social networks, it’s very easy to become sidetracked and lured away into time-consuming activities that offer very little, if any, return on your investment, i.e., Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.. Even on networks such as ActiveRain we can become overly absorbed in chasing points or engaged in heated debates over politics/religion. Develop a consistent daily time-frame and task schedule for your social media involvements. Being focused and disciplined will allow you the time necessary to accomplish all of your traditional methods of marketing.
The Usual Suspects
It’s relatively easy to identify the more popular sites currently being used for effectively expanding one’s digital footprint and engaging in meaningful connections/conversations with your Sphere and potential clients. I’m going to name a few here, and in our next installment, I’ll begin to break each of them down individually, demonstrate how they can be incorporated into your social media strategy, and used to effectively grow your business.
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DISCLAIMER: The author of this series is not a social media guru. Any similarity to such title, character or history of any said individual is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
An avid blogger since 2005, Rich has published over 1000 articles, most related to real estate. He enjoys using the tools of social media to brag/boast about the quality of Life on the picturesque Kitsap Peninsula in scenic WA State. He is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain, Crabbing in the Hood, Everyday CK, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail: kitsapagent@gmail.com
Tags: SMO, Social Media for Small Business, social media optimization, social media strategy, social networks
“Social Media is the new Water Cooler. 
