Social media is here to stay whether you like it or not and there are for businesses that use it properly far more benefits than issues.
This is of course where the problems begin because as the pressure mounts to be on it or be nowhere, too many dive in without any clear idea of what they are doing or where they are going.
The result is that their most precious resource is wasted by spending far too long being unproductive and not moving them or their customers closer to their goals.
Can you identify with this problem? If you have refused to get involved with social media or if you take a break from it and implement the solution that I suggest.
You will be able to achieve far more, with far less of your most precious resource wasted.
To ensure that you do not waste any more time you must create a structure for all of your business activities to follow that is independent of any software or fashionable techniques.
Facebook is by far the biggest social media platform at the moment and it has created its own world online with everyone clamoring to be associated with them.
Yet I know from my experiences on there that there are far too many people who do not understand why they are on there.
You know you must be on there but have you taken the time to figure out your why? The goal of any business leader should be to get out of their business as quick as possible, this is not to say that you have to sell or shutdown your business.
In the beginning you will have to build your business on your own but in the long run you want to create systems that anyone else can do, this will allow you to introduce further income streams without disturbing the ones that are working for you.
You should be aiming to run your business not work in your business.
This solution will help you to solve this issue for social media and if you truly understand this, then you can apply it to all areas of your business.
If we focus on your social media strategy it is important to understand that there are several stages to any strategy.
Firstly, you have the discovery element where you seek out opportunities for your business or customers.
If you plan to use a specific set of sites it makes sense to determine whether your customers are actually present there.
Once you have confirmed that they are there you will of course need to understand what you are allowed to do on each site and more importantly you must take the time to understand what the users will allow you to use, there are plenty or unwritten rules that you would be wise to follow.
With these 2 steps understood you can now look at your overall goal and start to carve out a path for each site based upon this target.
Each site has its own advantages and it is important that these are added into your plan.
Create a social media strategy master document that outlines what you want to achieve with this genre of site.
This could be to create a fan base; generate traffic to s specific site or just get people talking about your product.
Whatever your goal ensure that you have also identified a method of measuring the point at which this goal is achieved.
As we discussed earlier you want to ensure that everyone is working towards this common goal and ideally you want to outsource this task to someone else.
For this to happen you must clarify several points for them.
The most obvious is of course what they are allowed to discuss, it should be made absolutely clear that strong social opinions unless they match the company's beliefs should not be distributed via the company's profile.
Once this is understood you must construct a framework that anyone can follow.
In this you clarify what can be published and how often, of course each site has its own way of doing this.
Therefore you will have to create a dedicated guide for each social site that clarifies how to actually release the information and what response you are looking for.
Unfortunately with the best intentions in the world sometimes groups are formed with the sole intention of attacking another group or organization and it is important that you make clear a response and if needed an exit policy for this situation.
With all of this written into your plan now and only now should you begin to release content and start engaging with other social media users.