Angela Giles

Social Media and Social Networking is the ‘IN’ thing these days. Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, YouTube, Bebo, Ning and many more…

Should you open an account on Ning? What should you tweet about now that you have opened a Twitter account and more importantly how to get people to follow you? What should you share on Facebook? Are my YouTube videos being watched by my target audience? Do you have straightforward answers to these questions? Are you still searching for more ways to improve your social interactions?

You have no doubt seen that there are some marketers who have got the hang of social media and are able to use different social networking sites effectively to grow their businesses. Many of them have thousands of followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook while you may have followers but are not able to convert them to customers.

The sheer number of activities to be done on social media sites is overwhelming for any marketer – find friends and followers, share content on a regular basis, develop relationships, learn new tools, and keep up to date on the latest Twitter and Facebook applications. Even with all this, there is a still lot more to be done.

If social media is crushing you under its weight, it’s time to step back and take a bird’s eye view of the whole situation. Here I am giving you a 5 pronged approach for managing your social media presence.

1. Know Your Objectives

Many marketers simply start off by opening their account on a social networking site and thinking that magically something will happen. It is true that social sites can help you to get more customers but only if you know what you are doing. The most important thing is to know whether your target audience is also using the same social site. If it is not, then you will not get any results by being on that site. The next thing you must know clearly is your objective of being on social media. Is it to develop your personal brand or is it to drive traffic to your blog? Is it to generate qualified leads for your business or to improve your customer service?

2. Learn New Tools and Widgets

Once your objectives are set, you must look for tools and applications which can help you to save time by automating your manual activities. For instance, there are several great applications for Twitter and social pluggins for Facebook which can serve to ease a lot of your workload.

3. Learn Online Social Etiquettes

What is right and what is wrong is important to know if you want to attract and engage high quality people on social sites. For example, it is always not a good practice to market your products blatantly on any social media. The better you are at these etiquettes, the more followers you will attract which are good for your business.

4. Social Media Marketing Strategy

Develop a well planned out strategy for social media. There is not much to gain from random efforts on any social site. Your strategy must include the goals you want to achieve and the time frame in which you want to achieve them. You also need a lot of discipline in your social interactions and engagement with your target audience in terms of the time and quality of content you share.

5. Track Results

Have a system to track your progress. Your tracking system should include the increase in number of contacts in your network, the conversions from leads to customers and so on. Having a tracking system in place can help you to modify your strategy whenever required.

These five are the bare minimum requirements for putting together a meaningful and resourceful social media plan.

I hope this article has offered some value to your efforts on the social networking scene. I welcome any feedback and sharing of experiences on this front.

Remember to Believe in Yourself!

Ange;-)

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