How to Find Success Using Social Media

With all the hype about social media, it’s easy to believe you’re missing an immense opportunity if you are not participating. Yet hundreds of Twitter accounts, Facebook business pages and LinkedIn profiles have been “abandoned” because they failed to deliver the expected results quickly or simply were too time consuming to maintain.

Because it’s free, social media is sometimes viewed as “do-it-yourself” marketing tools for instant success. That can happen, if you are extremely lucky, but in most cases it takes a strategic planning, relationship building and evaluation to be successful.

Social media can help boost brand awareness, improve customer relations, garner market research, strengthen search engine optimization (SEO) and expand markets. Here are questions that can help an agency assess if and what type of social media strategy is right for it:

• What do you want to accomplish? Social media is different from traditional marketing. It’s about sharing, relationships, engagement, conversations and interaction. It is not about driving sales.
• Whom are you targeting? Is your demographic on social media and how are they using it?
• Are you willing to lose some control of your marketing efforts? Social media marketing provides a public platform for comments from others.
• Are you willing to invest the time and resources needed? It takes time and consistency to develop engaging content, respond to comments and posts, and evaluate results as well as develop and manage an agency policy. A half-hearted effort is worse than not doing it at all because it is out there for everyone to see. Who will lead the effort?
• Do you know that social media is ever changing? For example, Facebook recently introduced new Timeline pages for businesses and new paid ad features. Again, it takes time to stay abreast of new initiatives.

Here are thumbnails of the major social marketing tools:

LinkedIn is a mainly career networking site but it can also be a source of competitive intelligence, a referrer of web traffic and a means to positioning expertise. It’s critical to keep your profile up-to-date and periodically import your address book to build connections as new people join. Selectively choosing groups that match your target markets and have strong memberships can open new opportunities and can be better than industry groups. Specialty apps such as Events or Slide Share can be used to expand the reach. LinkedIn Answers can also help position you as an expert.

Facebook: While a Facebook page should never be a blatant sales tool, it can be an effective lead generator. Initiating conversations about life events, such as marriage, pregnancy, college education and home purchase that trigger the need for insurance can help develop a segmented prospect list. Whether you make an offer, promote a contest or undertake a Facebook ad campaign, offer something with value. You can also join Facebook groups that are relevant for your target market. The more you contribute, the more trusted you become. The search function lets you search by location, age, profession, marital status and so on, but be cautious. On this site, it is inappropriate to connect with those you do not know for selling purposes. Studies have shown that consumers primarily “like” pages for discounts and promotions or if they are customers of the business or support a related philanthropy. You may find, however, that you can learn more about prospects and friends of prospects and how to best connect with them. Check out Facebook’s Official Guide to Business Success on Facebook.

Twitter enables users to send short texts of up to 140 characters. You can search all posts on Twitter for key words based on your business. Twitter allows people to follow your business instantaneously. But the content must be related to your business, whether it’s a tip-of-the-day or a link to a white paper, video or blog post.

YouTube: Video traffic on the web is growing exponentially. It’s an opportunity to deliver information in a fast and entertaining format. Record videos with educational value; people do not want to watch commercials. Keep them short and sweet —not longer than two or three minutes. Stay involved with sharing and comments.

Pinterest is a bulletin board for favorite images, which can include consumer information. Your followers can like it, comment or pin it to their board. Its appeal has been primarily to women and works best with strong visual appeal.

All agents should explore how social media might work for them. Remember, people are not going to find you instantly and follow up is crucial.