To be successful your social networking needs to do only one thing: Provide what your audience wants. What do they want? They want value. What's value? It's what your audience thinks it is, not what you think it is.
Then
So, okay, you've give them value. Good. There's good news and some bad news. Bad news first, you're not done. Good news, now you get to tell the world that your social networking campaign exists and what's in it for the viewer. Your social networking campaign needs, and must provide, several things to be successful. At the risk of a little repetition, we list them all.
- An audience.
- It must provide value to the audience.
- It must meet your professional goals. Meaning that because your audience finds it helpful, informative, or entertaining, they follow it, enjoy it, and because it provides value, they follow it, read and interact with it, and do business with you. Do you see that the value you provide is the attractor? If you sell mortgages, explain them. If you sell hot dogs on Main Street show your hours and where you are. If you're a pizza restaurant list hours, location, menu. Run a contest. Put discount coupons online. Include a map, a game. Make your social networking campaign a fun place that people tell their friends about. In the words of Seth Godin, "Be remarkable."
- Your audience must know it exists, what's there, and how to find it. For this you can use an e-mail campaign, billing insert, a sign in your store, an insert in bags, adding your SNC's information to all business paperwork, informing all employees, and anything else you can thing of. Totally interconnect your social sites online. Link everything to everything else. Speaking of employees, do you have a social networking policy that tells them what they can do? Don't waste what your employees can do for you. Believe me, they can do you a lot of good. If you let them. So, let them.
- Your social networking campaign must be there before you tell anyone about it. It is the kiss-of-death to send people looking for your social networking campaign when it does not yet exist. Good intentions mean nothing. When you get comments that your Facebook page is not done yet, or your Twitter feed is empty. It's too late. Do not do that.
- It absolutely must have someone tasked with the job of keeping your social networking campaign up-to-date with fresh meaningful content. If you blog, then blog at least once per week. It you Tweet, tweet daily.
To sum up. Find what your audience wants. Give it to them. Tell them where it is and what it contains. Do that and your social networking campaign is the goose that lays golden eggs.
"If you don’t pay attention to the needs of your audience, they won’t pay attention to you."
