Archive for January, 2010

Social media is a tool to brand a business, a person or a product. The use of a social media campaign, depends on the goals set forth at the very beginning. How does it work, what is the big secret? Everyone is dying to know and many people are selling get rich tricks for social media, that only show you how to fill out your profile or how to sign up. But what most people are forgetting is the power behind the personal connection.

There is no real “secret recipe” for social media. Any business or cause can use it to build a brand, the most important thing to remember when using social media is to spend time building relationships with your network. That is the key. 

While there are ways to improve the use of social media like taming the message you send out to your network, or careful not be considered as a social media spammer, the communication aspect is very real and is th emost important part.

A few things that need to be incorporated into your social media campaign, that will help with it’s success are:

1. Strategy
2. Patience
3. Consistency

As with anything we do in life, there must be a strategy for how to meet our goals. Marketing is no different, in return social media is no different. What do you want people to know about you and how do you tell them? If you don’t know where you’re going, you will end up anywhere!

Patience is also key! This doesn’t happen over night. Some industries take longer than others. You must give it time, you must build a relationship and you must stick with it. Don’t expect to see monetary results in the first 3-4 months, even for the first year. Your efforts should not be based on monetary results alone, your efforts should be based on building your online reputation through the use of social media and expanding your brand.

Consistency, don’t leave your network hanging for too long, or people will become uninterested. We all like to have a two way conversation, right? It’s no different using these channels.

Learning how to do social media, is the easy part. Using it effectively is where it gets more difficult.