Do you have what it takes to stay on task, achieve your objectives, and be consistent in your approach when using online tools to promote your business? Hopefully at this point, almost everyone can agree that Social Media Marketing benefits businesses. With that said, there are still a large number of organizations who are not seeing results from their Social Media Marketing efforts.
There are many reasons why some business owners still are not seeing their Social Media Marketing efforts pay off. One of the main reasons might be that they lack discipline in one or many areas of their Social Media Marketing efforts. You see, Social Media Marketing is ALL about DISCIPLINE. This post dives into the subject of how being disciplined in your Social Media Marketing efforts helps you achieve your Online Marketing goals.
Social Media Marketing takes time. Success doesn’t happen over night. Business owners who jump into Social Media Marketing without a plan lack discipline. Business owners who use online tools that are not relevant to their business lack discipline. Business owners who do not consistently use those online tools to engage their target audience lack discipline. Business owners who spend time discussing topics that are not relevant to their business or to their target audience lack discipline. Business owners who do not take a step back (at least quarterly) to analyze how they are tracking against their performance measures (which should be set within your Online Marketing Plan) lack discipline…and the list goes on. All business owners who act in the ways mentioned above are going to find it hard to achieve success with Social Media Marketing. For Catalyst Marketers, it all comes back to discipline. So let’s discuss how you can ensure that you do not get stuck in the traps above, get disciplined in your Social Media Marketing efforts, and achieve success with Online Marketing.
- Just like a shiny new toy, Social Media Marketing gets business owners excited. Sometimes you just jump right in without a plan. As a business owner, I’m sure you can appreciate the importance of having a solid plan for almost everything you do. A plan allows you to set objectives, figure out ways to achieve those objectives, and set performance measures. Before starting that Facebook business page, or tweeting on Twitter, be sure to take time and build your Online Marketing Plan. This will allow you to stay focused while executing on your plan, as well as, provide you with direction, and allow you to measure your results.
- When creating your Online Marketing Plan, be sure to determine who your target audience is, and then spend some time doing a little research on what online tools they use. Once you determine where your target audience is spending their time online, you can setup profiles on those online tools & begin engaging with your audience. It takes discipline to say, I’m going to use LinkedIn to promote my business or I’m not going to use Facebook. If LinkedIn makes sense for your businesss, then that’s where you need to be. If your target audience isn’t on Facebook, then don’t waste your time on that channel.
- Be focused in your messaging. Inject personality into you content, but DO NOT talk about topics that are not relevant to your business or your audience. Your customers and prospects don’t care that you’re “taking a shower” or “headed to the gym”. Separate your personal messages from your professional messages, BUT AGAIN, be sure to infuse your personality into your messages.
- Set time aside every month or every quarter to analyze your Social Media Marketing against the performance measures you setup in your Online Marketing Plan. You can do this by utilizing reporting tools like Google Analytics, Facebook & foursquare Reports, Feedburner, etc. Tracking your results on a regular basis against how you thought you would perform in certain areas allows you to understand return-on-investment. It also allows you to capitalize on marketing tactics that are working and improve marketing tactics that are not working. With time always lacking in a business owners schedule, it takes discipline to sit down for a few hours every quarter and truly analyze how things are going. Those who do make time for this CRUCIAL activity will see many more benefits than those who do not.
Here at Catalyst Marketers, we know that Social Media Marketing works. Two of our largest clients have been a direct result of using online tools to reach prospects, build relationships with them, and ultimately convert them into customers. The two tools that were of most use to us in attracting those two clients were LinkedIn and Squidoo. We setup our Online Marketing Plan, understood what online tools made sense for our business, used the tools consistently, and ultimately achieved success. You can do the same for your small business. All it takes is a little discipline.
A big key to all of this is finding the right Online Marketing Agency. Many traditional agencies out there now include social media marketing or blogging in their portfolio of services. Not only that, but it seems like 35% of the unemployed are now Internet Marketing Consultants –> Buyer Beware. I’m not saying folks shouldn’t try to start their own businesses if they’ve been laid off, what I am saying is that you need to meet with a number of agencies & professionals before making any decisions. Many of these folks don’t know how to truly use online tools to help grow relationships and drive sales. Others know how to do it, but they are stuck in the old world rules of having a brick-and-mortar agency with numerous employees. This means their costs are going to be astronomically higher than an agency like ours, which is a 
Chad Ocho Cinco is a pioneer, not only for the NFL, but for Professional Sports Players around the world. If you ask 
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More times than I care to count, I hear people talking about how important it is to have a large QUANTITY of Facebook fans without much regard to the QUALITY of the relationship with those fans. Many times, engagement is an afterthought. Here at Catalyst Marketers, we believe in Quality over Quantity. Yes, we want to have a large number of fans too, but what we really want is a strong relationship with each and every fan. More times that not, the first interaction we have with a fan is a Thank You message that we send them after they’ve become a fan. 
You might be thinking, well, it sounds like it could really work…but what happens if it really works?? I could be on the hook for a big donation. That’s very true, and it’s exactly why you may want to tie the Check-in process with a foursquare special and percentage donation. This way you only make a donation on the transactions that occur as a direct result of the promotion. If a customer uses the foursquare special to receive a discount on her purchase, then you use a percentage of that sale to make a donation. As long as you tie the donation to the purchase, you should have enough money at the end of the promotion for the donation. You can also make it a flat donation; it doesn’t have to be a percentage (ie. For every purchase using the foursquare special, we’ll donate $2 to charity). 
As I’m sure many of you know, when it comes to your home, foundation problems are the last thing you want to hear from a contractor. A strong foundation provides the stability for your home, and the same is true for your Twitter profile. You might be saying, well that sounds good in theory, but how do I build a “foundation” on an online platform like Twitter? Great question. When I say, build a foundation on Twitter, I mean, find your voice, determine what you want to tweet about, figure out what your goals for Twitter are, so that your future actions are a direct result of trying to accomplish those goals, build out your profile, add an image, and then, actually start tweeting. Notice I didn’t say, “start following people”. There’s a reason for that…
Most of the time, people understand that you may be new to Twitter, so you don’t have a ton of followers, but if you also have a semi-filled out profile, with no profile picture (whether is a logo or personal image), AND hardly any tweets, then it’s likely that the majority will assume that you’re not an active Twitter user and move on without following you. NOW, if you’re just starting to use Twitter for business and you create a plan for what you’re hoping to achieve through Twitter, fill out your profile, upload an image, and start tweeting on a regular basis, then after 1 – 2 weeks, you’ll have 100+ tweets (hopefully), which is good for a new user. Now, as long as what your tweeting about appeals to your target followers (which is a post for another day), you’re more likely to attract those folks.
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Through TweetDeck, users can type or paste a full URL into the Twitter text input area and TweetDeck, through it’s integration with bit.ly (or other URL shorteners) will automatically turn your link into a short url. No more copying the URL that you want to share on Twitter, navigating to http://bit.ly in your web browser, pasting the URL into the URL input area, and then copying/pasting your short url into Twitter. Now, simply copy/paste your full URL into TweetDeck and everything is done for you.
Another thing that’s great about TweetDeck is that you can use it on your mobile phone. Downloading TweetDeck for your mobile phone is free and really easy. TweetDeck is still evolving and definitely has its limitations. With that said, it’s one of the better Twitter management tools out there. Like other online social tools, TweetDeck will continue to evolve as user needs change. Definitely consider using TweetDeck to make communicating with customers and prospects on Twitter more manageable. 
Now, I know some of you may say, “well, I’ve been using Twitter for Customer Service already”. If so, that’s great. You rock! With that said, you still may find some value in this post, so stay with me. 