Marketing Strategy and Social Media
As the owner of a small business, you are probably peppered with requests from your employees - primarily in sales - to engage in social media. How do you decide whether or not to use social media, and which ones to consider? Should it be part of your marketing strategy and included in your marketing plans?
Social media, like Twitter, can no longer be ignored. You may find many stories about the successful application of social media in small businesses. And, you may personally enjoy just using them.
But social media for business should serve a specific business purpose. To determine its validity for growing your business and helping you complete, consider these strategic questions:
- What function is it designed for (e.g text messaging, group conversation) and how does this fit into company activity?
- What controls are available? (e.g. privacy)
- What business objective will it serve?
- Can its results be monitored, measured, analyzed, and reported?
- Will it provide an important new function or replace an existing one? If so, is it the best alternative?
- Who will manage the function and will this person align it with business objectives?
- What is the cost of using it in terms of time?
- Even if there are no immediate, tangible results from social media, are there long-term reasons to engage in it, such as testing its feasibility and staying current with new business tools?
By asking these questions, you are in a better position to make an effective decision, and you train your employees to think in terms of outcomes rather than just actions.
More about Marketing Strategy here.
Mission: To help small and mid-size businesses capture the power of big-picture marketing.