博客

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you followed a pretty typical digital media path when you started out in business.

1. 获取域名

2. Create a 脸谱网 page

3. And 推特 account

4. And LinkedIn account

5. 和谷歌+

6. Instagram

7. Snapchat

8. Latest new thing everyone says you need…

Once you have all of these awesome 社交媒体 profiles, pointing back to your outstanding website, sales will come rolling in by default, 正确的?

Hey, the “if you build it they will come” mentality worked for Kevin Costner.

Unfortunately, by now you probably realize it doesn’t work for anything in business either. Not even 社交媒体.

Lucky for you, 社交媒体 isn’t as hard as we make it sometimes. Behind every good digital marketing campaign are the same four keys that work for anything else you do in business.

制定策略

What, exactly, are you trying to accomplish on your 社交媒体 platforms? You may be thinking this is a no-brainer. You want to sell your product, of course!

但, 社交媒体 doesn’t always work like that, defining your exact goals will help you understand which platforms will work best for you and how.

Are you looking--specifically--for more direct leads? More general traffic to your website? More engagement for your brand? Thought leadership to boost your reputation as an expert?

Nailing down your exact goals for 社交媒体 will help you focus.

规划

The saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

A lot of people think 社交媒体 is just throwing up a few status updates now and then, but experts know there’s much more psychology behind it. There are entire blogs around how to maximize 社交媒体!

规划 your 社交媒体 content starts with your target market. 他们是谁?? Which platforms do they prefer? How do they typically engage with 社交媒体? What do they like to do, what attracts them to brands in the first place? You can probably whittle down your 社交媒体 platforms to just one or two, the ones your target actually uses.

When you understand your target customer, you can create a plan for finding and sharing great content with them. It doesn’t even have to be your content. Sharing links to expert advice and interesting articles is also a good way to boost your brand and establish you as the company in the know.

执行

啊,是的. 困难的部分.

Once you have your plan in place, it’s time to actually put it into action. Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite make it easy to schedule updates to most 社交媒体 platforms in advance. If you have chosen to use 推特, 推特 lists are a great way to keep up with important people in your industry and other people you want to keep in touch with.

但, here’s where we have to share a little tough love. Remember when we said there is no default in 社交媒体. Even after you strategize and plan, that’s still true. You have to commit to following through with your plan, or you won’t see any results.

测量

Don’t--I repeat, DON’T--just start throwing things out there on 社交媒体 without some way to track it. Social media can take a lot of time, time is your most valuable resource.

For every single thing you put out there, you must be able to measure its effectiveness. 有点.ly account will help you track clicks on your links, Google Analytics will keep you in the know about where your website traffic is coming from.

测量 everything. How many favorites/likes/retweets/repins are you getting? How many people respond to questions or comment on links? How many go directly from 社交媒体 into your sales funnel?

Find the things that aren’t working, stop doing those.

What do you think? Any other 社交媒体 strategies we should know about?

Oh, while you’re at it, you can follow DevDigital on 推特, 脸谱网, Pinterest.