Last weeks blog recapping our experience at Cisco Marketing Velocity has spurred a lot of interest. I’m glad to know you guys are paying attention to what we are doing over here!

More than a few of you have told me you’ve tried and failed to gain traction on social and since I’m still riding the tide of excitement from Cisco Marketing Velocity, I thought I’d spread some insight into how we do things at ScanSource KBZ.

Before we get into the nitty gritty I’d like to get something out of the way. Yes, you NEED social media. There, I said it. I know a lot of you are hoping to get by without harnessing the power of social and maybe you can. But is getting by what you want? I think ultimately, everyone’s goal is to realize success, and not just moderate success; we’d all like to be wildly successful. In the digital era continued and evolving growth simply can’t happen without being active in the world of social media. It just can’t.

Consistency is key.

Social media accounts can sometimes be like a child’s new toy. A shiny plaything that’s loved in the beginning but winds up left outside to be rained on and chewed by the neighbor’s dog. You have to be consistent. For most platforms this means posting at least once everyday. For others, like Twitter, that may mean multiple times a day. You’ll discover through time, experimentation and CONSISTENCY what works best. Look at social media as an ongoing aspect of your business that evolves with you and stick to it.

Don’t rely on automation.

Automation is great; we love to automate our social media posts. But you can’t rely on automation alone. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses new to the world of social media make is to endlessly automate content without interacting in real-time with followers and prospects. Be social. That’s’ the whole point. Like, retweet, comment, act like a person and not a business. Our world may be digital but our hearts and minds are still analog.

Target the right audience.

To optimize your social media marketing efforts it’s important to know who your customers, competitors and sales prospects are and which social networks they spend time using. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to appeal to everyone. Define and target your ideal audience.

Don’t try to be everywhere all at once.

Time truly is money. If you only have an hour a day to devote to social media marketing you’d better make your time count. Don’t waste it messing around with social platforms your customers and prospects aren’t using. If you’ve done your homework and are targeting the right audience you’ll know where they reside in the digital world. There’s no point using Snapchat, Pinterest or even Facebook if the people you are targeting don’t live there. Don’t waste time trying to be everywhere at once.

Develop a social media strategy.

Of course, none of this makes sense without goals and long-term thinking in mind. Like anything else in business, you don’t want to embark on a haphazard social media journey. Building a strategy helps you plan ahead and shapes the messaging and image of your brand. It’s also good to keep in mind; successful social media strategies address the full scope of your business from the fun stuff down to the unfortunate, like customer issues and complaints. Strategize for everything.

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, I’m not going to lie, it is! Most of us do’t have the time to invest in managing multiple social media accounts and that’s why so many fail. You may find the best way to handle your social media presence is to hire a dedicated professional who will take care of things for you. If that’s something that you’d like to explore we can help to point you in the right direction. For those of you who’d like to take a crack at it on your own, hopefully the tips above will get you started. If you find yourself struggling we are always here to help.