Saturday, December 25, 2010

Your 2011 Social Media Strategy, Review 2010, Plan 2011 then go...

Reviewing Your Social Media Strategy To Ensure A Successful 2011

social media review

Honest Benchmark – It starts with an honest review of where you are at in Social Media.  I am assuming if you are reading this post you are one of the many businesses which implemented Social Media this year.  If I was meeting with you in person I would ask if you followed through with your Social Media strategy and goals this year.  So many businesses jump into Social Media with great plans and a minimal strategy only to decide to abandon Social Media because they realize it takes more than just setting up a few profiles.  Even some of our clients at Square Martini Media after creating a detailed Social Media strategy discovered in the process that Social Media is a big of a commitment and had to reconsider moving forward.  Social Media takes someone within a company or a firm like ours actual hours, time, and money to make successful.

Review Analytics – Use Google Analytics or something similar to review your site traffic for the year.  If you are using Social Media as a marketing tool to bring traffic to your hub (website or blog) you should clearly see what areas within Social Media are working and which one are not.  This is a great way to discover opportunities while having some reality checks at the same time.  What worked and what can be improved on?  Are there areas within Social Media that you are spending a lot of time yet not getting the desired results?    Make the decision to change or abandoned what is not working and focus your resources on new strategies or expanding what is working.

Blogging and Facebook Business Pages – Are you creating new content?  Did you commit to a certain amount of posts this year and did you follow through?  Have you adjusted your posting calendar for both your blog and Facebook business page this year and have your reviewed the results?  Are there certain topics, themes, or discussions that seem to be more successful than others?  For many businesses their blog can be the majority of the traffic for their site.  Take some time and discover the posts that are still driving traffic to your website and how you might expand on them for 2011.

Social Media Profiles – When is the last time you updated your Linkedin Profile?  And speaking of profiles have you seen your Facebook profile lately?  Many business owners set up a profile and never look back.  Business goals and messages change, make sure your message is congruent with both your personal and business brands.  Block out time to review and make needed adjustments to your main Social Media profiles.

Show me the money! – Let’s talk about sales!  If you are using Social Media to create sales make sure to review your sales and see where they are coming from.  Is the time, effort, and money you are spending on Social Media bringing new sales to your business?  I have to make it clear that I am assuming you are tracking your sales.  Not kind of tracking or broadly tracking, but really making sure that you and every employee is making every possible effort to identify where each and every sale is coming from.  I have talked to many business owners this year who swear they are tracking their sales.  Typically when I dig deeper and ask more questions about their sales they realize they are not tracking as well as they thought.  This is one of the biggest mistakes made in business today.  You must have great sales tracking to know if Social Media or any marketing strategy is working.  If you cannot clearly identify sales from Social Media it is time to adjust your tracking methods.

Read more at www.squaremartinimedia.com

No comments:

Post a Comment