You just got your business started, or maybe you’ve had your own business for years, but everyone you talk to has advice, right? “You need to be on Facebook,” your friend nods knowingly. “Have you checked out Pinterest? It’s addictive. You should be on that,” your aunt tells you. “I don’t do it myself, but they say you should be on Twitter. You should do that,” says your barber.
Many of my clients aren’t sure which of these social media tools they should start or continue using. When they come to me for advice, the first thing we do is sit down and talk.
“What are your business goals?” I ask.
“To be on social media—everyone says I have to get my business on it.”
“Before we engage in social media as part of your strategy, but what are you trying to achieve? What are your business goals?”
“Well…I always want to increase sales, especially for the new product line we just started carrying. And no one goes to my website, which is a shame—we spent a lot of money developing that—because if they went there, they would learn more about what we offer. And we would love to see whether what we’re already doing for advertising, marketing, whatever is actually working.”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”
Match Your Social Media Efforts To Your Business Goals
People often get sidetracked and start thinking that getting involved in social media is a goal in itself, but it should be part of the larger overarching goals that you’ve determined are necessary to improve your business.
I find that when we focus on their business, my clients are quite clear in their own minds as to what their goals are. They know what they want to accomplish. Where they are often unclear is how to go about it.
And that makes sense, doesn’t it? As the business owner, your expertise lies in your business. Presumably, that’s why you are in that particular business. But you may have little or no familiarity with how to communicate about your business in today’s world. Beyond that, you also may be unsure how to measure how well your efforts are helping you achieve your goals.
Jason Falls, CEO of Social Media Explorer, encourages business owners to identify one or more of these Seven Business Goals of Social Media–and How to Get Started:
- Enhancing Brand Awareness
- Protecting Your Reputation
- Enhancing Your Public Relations
- Extending Your Customer Service
- Building a Community of Advocates
- Facilitating Research and Development
- Driving Sales and Leads
Compare those business goals with the social media goals outlined in Social Media Examiner. Andrew K. Kirk provides terrific details on how to measure the return on investment on your social media efforts in 4 Social Media Goals Every Business Should Measure: Raise awareness of your brand, website traffic, website visitor loyalty, and conversion rates.
Your social media efforts should always support your business goals. Once we figure those out, then we talk about how we’re going to accomplish them. We can talk about that next.
