I often talk with small business owners who want to jump on the Social Media bandwagon and establish their presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, or some combination of these. After all, everyone is doing it and who wants to be left behind? Many people adopt the "just try it" mindset, and create an account, start posting, build a following, ...and then wonder where to go from there (the classic Fire, Aim, Ready approach). That's fine if your goal for social media is just to be social. But if you're intending to market your business through Social Media, you should take a more deliberate approach. I call it finding your voice. Here are some practical tips for how to get there.
Establish your goals. Are you looking to draw visitors to your website? Address customer concerns and feedback? Establish online thought leadership? Build a brand? While these are all valid goals, your answer should NOT be "all of the above". Decide on one or 2 primary goals and put your full weight behind those. You'll be more effective if you're focused.
Identify your intended audience, and make a clear mental picture of who they are. If your audience is your customers, for example (that's the case for my blog), keep a single person in mind and define them more expansively than just their interest in your product or service. What do they look like, what interests do they have? What do they care about? My favorite example is the Fiskateers blog, which targets scrapbookers. Sure, they use Fiskar scissors, but the voice of the blog understands that a scrapbooker is much more than just a user of scissors. By defining a clear persona as their target reader, Fiskar has built a successful following by catering to the specific needs of the scrapbooking persona.
Define what you stand for, and write it down. It could be a tagline (if you have a good one), or a 2-sentence statement of what you want your blog or Facebook page to represent to readers, or what type of information source you want your Twitter followers to see you as. You can call it your Mission or your Soapbox or your Position; the important thing is to write it down and look at it often as you decide how to represent yourself and shape what you write for 'social' consumption.
Only post topics valuable to your audience. If you want to build a loyal base of followers, you need to give them information they value. Do it consistently, and your following will grow. Better yet, your reputation will spread, your website traffic will increase, and your business will benefit. Whether it's passing links to your Twitter followers, sharing information with Facebook Page 'likers', engaging in a LinkedIn discussion or Questions & Answers, posting on your blog or commenting on other blogs, put each comment or post through your 'value' filter before you send it and don't waste your followers' time.
Have a consistent style & tone. People follow you for a reason, and they will come back looking for more of what they initially liked. Don't disappoint them. It doesn't mean you should be repetitive or boring, just that you should give your followers what they've come to expect of you.
Find your community. No matter how good or unique you are, you won't be the only one talking about the topics you choose. Social media is all about sharing, so be generous in the give & take. Self promotion is a turn-off for social media fans, so read what others write, share links when you like something, and give credit where it's due. Others will do the same for you.
Measure your progress. One way to do this, of course, is to count your followers or "Likers" and watch them grow over time. But, more important, check your goals and make sure you're tracking progress towards them. Are you looking to enhance your reputation online? Then find out how widely you're being quoted, mentioned, retweeted, and shared (see Social Media Metrics 101 for a list of tracking tools). Looking to draw traffic to your website? Then use Google Analytics to see how many people are being sent via Social Media links. Just want to be liked? Well, then, OK, count your "Likes".