Brand Builders Part 28: Does Social Media Make Sense for You?

You know, ever since social media hit the business world in 2008, it’s been the shiny toy. Every business has gravitated towards it, everybody thinks they know how to use it, and what I find most companies do, they regard it as a chore. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of energy, it’s frustrating for them, they’re not really sure how to do it the right way, and they’re quite certain that they’re social media manager is just playing on Facebook. So, if you fall into that category, let me give you some feedback and maybe some things that will make you feel better.

First of all, if your target audience is using that social medium; so all the people you want to talk to spend all their time on LinkedIn, then you don’t need any other tools, except the one where your audience is. Don’t get spread so thin, don’t try to maintain four or five or six different social media platforms, just use the one that your target audience is using. Okay, so that’s the first thing. The next thing I want you to think about is this; if you’re just posting the same stuff over and over again, and you’re not really getting a lot of engagement, well, not to be mean, but you’re not doing it right.

You want to see your engagement growing every month. You want to see more and more people who are liking, sharing, commenting; that’s all engagement. And that’s what you need to drive. So, you need to start doing different things if what you’re doing isn’t really driving those numbers up. Use a lot of content with faces; the faces of your customers, the faces of your employees, happy faces of people that you’ve helped. Those really do track well. Also, you want to not just talk about yourself the whole time. There’s a whole wide world out there. Don’t talk about yourself, really hardly ever. Share things that your target audience is going to care about. Give them things that is important to them, not just the things that are important to you.

Last but not least, I want you to realize that social media is a very small piece of your entire marketing package. So, don’t get so caught up in it and spend all your time and effort there and it’s kind of like you’re just spinning your wheels. I’ve seen a lot of companies who’ve done everything right but all of a sudden, their accounts been locked. They don’t control it. So, you want to make sure you’re following all the rules because you don’t want to get locked out, but you also want to put it in perspective. It should be a very small piece of your overall package. So make sure you’re using it but not too much, if you want to build a better brand.