- Build a social company from the start. Set up your social accounts as you grow to develop an early fan base. Use your social accounts for more than just marketing, talk to people, and find employees, partners, and investors. You could even use your accounts to obtain user-generated content for future marketing campaigns.
- Objectives, Strategies, Tactics, Measure, Repeat. Determine your objective, design a strategy, measure your results, reevaluate, adjust and do it again and again and again. Social media is always changing so go with the flow, adapt and grow with it.
- You don't have to be on every platform. Figure out your target audience, and the platform(s) that make sense to be on. Overextending yourself only breeds poor content. Know the strengths of each platform and customize your content for each one.
- Be consistent Develop a brand voice and stick to it across all platforms Claim consistent handles. Make sure they are easy to find/remember and that they match up across all platforms.
- Blog. Tell your story and convey your passion! Fans will connect with you more when they know your history and can identify your brand with a personality.
- Drive traffic back to your website and web visitors to social platforms. Don't forget to throw in a post or two that links back to your website, and make sure you have social buttons on your home page that are easy to find.
- Identify influencers and engage them with your brand. Find those fans/organizations that will act as a loud speaker for your brand and engage them!
- Encourage user-generated content. People love to be asked for their input so ask! Have fun with your fans by creating a user-generated contest. Not only will it create chatter but you now have free marketing content that people will share with their friends because THEY created it.
- Don't be afraid to take it offline. Negative feedback happens. Apologize/address the problem and then take it offline by offering up your contact information.
- Don't drink and tweet. For real. Yep. That's pretty self-explanatory.
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