Social media marketing has moved out of the “Let’s try it and see what happens” phase and has matured into a powerful marketing tool. With millions upon millions of users across wide vast spectrum of social networking sites (not just the Big 3 of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), companies turn to social media to help them connect with their consumers on a new level, build their online brand presence, create a company voice and more. While most companies (big and small) realize that they have to be involved with social media in some way, many are still fine tuning the details. One of the biggest problems that I have seen with social media marketing is that companies try to take on too much at a time, and end up drowning in the social networking sea.
Creating a dozen different social media profiles is great if all you want is to get the link, but there is so much more value in taking the time to actively build an online community. Once you start your own social networking efforts, you’ll see that it isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it kind of marketing tool. I can easily spend two to three hours a day just handling the social media for Brick Marketing, and I think there is still a lot that we could be doing. You should only join a social networking site if you have the time to really dig in and settle down for the long haul.
Joining too many social networking sites can actually be a little dangerous if you aren’t careful. It’s very easy to accidentally post something to the wrong account (company instead of personal), and this could land your business in the social media hot seat. If you’re trying to juggle too many balls at once, it’s easy to lose sight of where you are and what you’re doing. Even though you can delete posts/Tweets/statuses, once it’s out there, it never really goes away.
You also should only join a social networking site it you have a real reason to be there. Take a little extra time and do some research. Which social networking sites are your target audiences actually using? Which ones are growing in popularity? You don’t want to join a site and develop a full profile only to realize that you have no one to connect to.
You don’t need a team of people to run your social media marketing campaigns. In fact, it’s better to pick one or two people and put them in charge. This will help keep your company voice consistent across the various social networking platforms and keep the number of backseat drivers to a minimum.
