Getting started with social media: where to begin?

There is no doubt that social media is having a huge impact on the way we communicate.  Now that Facebook is cited to be the 3^rd largest country in the world, having more registered users than the population of USA, and social networking has become the number one activity on the web, taking the place of … well, you know what was number one before, don’t you? (don’t dare type the word and get shown up in the wrong kind of keyword searches!!), it looks like that social media is not a fad.

Social media is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

So rather than bury your head in the sand and try to pretend it will all go away, at some point you will have to acknowledge these new ways of communicating with potential clients.

But where to begin?

Just because social media is technology based, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it.  But social media is just like any other type of marketing tool in that it needs proper planning, objectives set and a timeline planned out to make sure it is an effective use of your resources.

And like any other marketing tool, the place to start with social media is with your clients.

Too many business owners get sucked in to “all that glitters” and before you know it, they are tweeting, facebooking and blogging all hours of the day.

But how many of you have considered your clients first?

You wouldn’t dream of placing a £5K advert in the Sunday Times without thorough market research to gauge the return on your investment.

You wouldn’t dream of getting in to your car and driving 500 miles to see a potential client without having a phone conversation with them first to understand what it was they were looking for.

And yet, there are business owners all over the world who are jumping on the social media bandwagon – without taking the time to consider how their target clients use it.

It actually doesn’t matter what you like or dislike about the different social media tools, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.  What matters is how your target clients are beginning to use social media and what they like and don’t like about them.

So before you tweet, poke or blog – STOP! Take the time to understand how your target clients use various social media tools.  Once you’ve done that, your investment in integrating social media in to your marketing strategy will be spent more wisely.

What thoughts do you have about getting started with social media? It would be great to read your comments

Other articles you may be interested in:

1. Social Media: What’s the worst thing you can do?
2. Doesn’t blogging & social media take up so much time?
3. Social Media Success: How Do You Make It Work?