Following on from last weeks blog on ‘5 questions to ask before starting’ here are 5 steps, hints and tips on how to start your social media marketing and communications.

Step 1: Set up a sample group of your customers/ clients or stakeholders and survey them on their social media usage over a one-week period, then start your social media where your clients are. This allows you to start slowly and test results before making social media a complete part of your marketing. The answers from your sample group will illustrate an important fact about their social media use, so start where they are and remember there’s more to social media than Facebook! Before starting keep these points in mind: Be consistent and constant in your online publishing. Keep it relevant to your target market. Don’t bombard them with ‘just sales’ info. Share your knowledge, passion and enthusiasm for what you do or provide. Most importantly try and start conversations e.g. How do you use ‘our product’ this will promote discussions with you and within your social network. Once you’ve started evaluate, review and remember that social media marketing is a long term game that requires commitment in time and money. If done well this online social media community you’ve created will become enthusiastic supporters, promoters and followers of what you do. They will also be a key source of feedback about products or service. Listen and talk back and this will grow your online audience. If YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and the blogosphere are all foreign terms then consider the following five reasons why you should know about a range of social media formats, not just Facebook: 1/ LinkedIn is the number one pre-employment checking tool for recruitment specialists and is very popular social media site for B2B sales and contacts. Think of five degrees of separation and this is very much how LinkedIn works; you’ll know someone who knows someone who knows the person you’re after. 2/ YouTube’s viral functions - “share this video” and “tell a friend" These Youtube functions are automatically added at the end of each video, making each video simple to share. After Google, YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world and as Google owns YouTube they will list YouTube videos in their search results. You must be on YouTube so your story is a part of those search results. 3/ Pinterest is a social discovery network, but it's not a platform for self-promotion. Rather than broadcasting what the company is doing, small business owners can crowdsource and create highly visual pinboards for inspiration. Share your passion and knowledge. 4/ Twitter is a great platform for projecting what your company is doing and accessing a large audience, and it’s easy. Twitter is a great real time news service that links photos and videos and other links that are easy for anyone to find and follow. 5/ Facebook is the Big Daddy of social media but is smaller than YouTube. Facebook is where a huge part of your market will spend a lot of there time but it is a very crowded space. Building communities through Facebook takes patience but if you provide quality content, listen and react quickly the online audience will grow. Advertising and competitions through Facebook are also very effective ways to promote and market your Facebook page as well as your business The right combination of social media, advertising and a marketing plan can truly take your brand to the next level. Start now, take your time, choose wisely the social network and stay the distance and above all enjoy the interaction:) If you want to know more about setting up your social media or how to create a content plan please contact me via email dave @ tandemstudios.co.nz