Social Media Presentation and Demonstration
As a Social Media Specialist Virtual Assistant, I am often asked about the keys to successful marketing in the Social Media realm. The answers may sound easy but they can be challenging to implement well. Getting help from a VA can be just what you need to stay on top of your game! Here are my top 7 tips on what it takes to be successful.
- Relationship Building: You need to know and understand that the primary purpose of Social Media is to build relationships. I can’t stress this enough. If you plan on using this medium to simply promote your products and services in a one way push, your chances of success in this environment are minimal at best. Social Media is an ideal venue for getting to know your target market in a professional but conversational way; sharing information, getting feedback and becoming the person businesses think of when they think of your products or service. Knowing which applications – Blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, for example that would best suit your needs, and how they work together is critical to the process.
- Motivation: Knowing and understanding your motivation for getting involved in the Social Media realm. Investing your time and effort into Social Media just for the sake of it, is a waste of time. You need to have a strategic plan in place and know who your target market is. Finding out where they hang out online and how you are going to actively engage this audience is paramount to your success.
- Focus: It’s not enough just to set up profiles on the Social Media sites and then not actively engage on a daily basis. Having a routine and staying committed to the process are key. Also, staying focused on your target market requires discipline. I believe that quality is more important than quantity. What is the point of having 5000 followers on Twitter if you can’t talk to them in a meaningful way? Building your presence takes time. Your success will not happen overnight.
- Central Hub: Having a central hub is important. Increasingly, businesses are creating a blog as their ‘go to’ site. Why? The social media audience loves fresh content. Unlike static websites, blog sites now offer you the ability to continually offer fresh, new information to your audience. This platform also allows your audience to comment back to you, giving you the feedback every business owner needs to stay on top of their clients’ needs and wants. Check out WordPress.org as my favorite choice. Hosting your blog on your own domain is preferable.
- Automation: Publishing your information over a wide variety of social media applications can be a tedious undertaking. Luckily, there are an abundance of tools out there today to make your job easier when it comes to populating your sites. Socialoomph.com (formerly Tweetlater), Ping.fm are just a couple that come to mind. Make good use of them! Also make sure you offer choices that allow your readers to spread the word like RSS and bookmarking sites like Digg for example.
- Evaluation: It’s important to have a method to evaluate your success in Social Media. Using tools like Google Analytics, is one way to see where your traffic is coming from and know which Social Media sites are giving you the biggest bang for your buck. It’s also important to know that in the Social Media environment, there are two ROIs – a Return on Influence in your marketplace as well as Return on Investment in the more traditional sense. Learn how to interpret these findings.
- Getting help: Finally, not everyone has the skills to successfully implement the first 6 strategies I’ve outlined above. Using a Social Media Specialist VA can be a good way to achieve success. This doesn’t mean that you can offload the entire responsibility onto your VA for your Social Media campaign. Social Media requires your authentic voice which allows your readership to get to know who you are and what you are about. What a VA CAN do, is help you identify your goals and strategies, and take on some of the tasks that require things like research, optimization, syndication, fine-tuning and basically help you stay on track. I offer coaching and consulting, assessment and strategy, profile set-up and ongoing maintenance and support.
So those are my 7 top tips, what tips would YOU add?
If you live in the north Toronto area, I am pleased to announce that I will be running a Social Media presentation and demonstration on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at the East Gwillimbury Civic Centre, 19000 Leslie Street, Sharon, ON. The session will run from 6:30-9:00pm. This event is being sponsored by the East Gwillimbury Chamber of Commerce. Please contact 905-478-8447 to register for the session. If you are a small business owner who would like to explore Social Media or already have social media profiles but don’t know how to leverage them to grow your business, then this is the session for you! Topics will include: What is Social Media, Why Should You Get Involved, What are the Big Three, The Explosion of Blogging, ROI, Secrets to Success, How to Get Started, Getting Help. The presentation will be followed by a walk through of several applications online. Come on out and learn about these powerful tools. I look forward to meeting you!
While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….
