3 Tips for Starting Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

If you are still “testing the waters” when it comes to social media marketing, you are behind the times. Social media marketing has matured passed the trial-and-error phase and has become a critical component of any online marketing campaign. Some web marketing experts have even said they would be willing to give up their website over their social profiles if they had to choose (not something I would recommend doing, for the record). The point is that just about everyone knows they need to get a social media marketing campaign under way, but many are still a little fuzzy on the hard details.

Here are 3 tips to better manage your social media marketing campaign:

1. Create bios first
Every social network, big or small, lets users create a profile description about themselves. However, each network has a very different idea about the kind of information you get to share and how much space you have to do it in. Look at Facebook and Twitter, for instance. Facebook gives you a practically limitless amount of space to introduce your company and your brand. Twitter gives you about two sentences. To both streamline the process of creating social networking profiles and guarantee that the information and messaging are consistent, develop several different profiles of varying lengths before you begin your campaign.

2. Decide who will be your “voice”
Just about every marketing department has a viable claim as to why they should manage your social media marketing campaign. PR claims they should be in charge because they are used to being the public voice of your company. The SEO expert says he should be in charge because he knows how to use social media to create a strong link portfolio and online brand presence. The creative team, brand manager and so forth all have similar reasons. It doesn’t matter who you decide to hand the reigns to, just make sure you make someone in charge of and accountable for goes out through your social profiles. Having one person in charge will make sure your branding stays intact and your messaging consistent.

3. Branch out from the Big 3
You have to be on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but that doesn’t mean you only have to be on those networks. There are literally hundreds of smaller, niche networks for you to develop a community. Just because they are small, that doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable! There might even be a social network that directly appeals to your audience, potentially making it more powerful than any other network you could join. Just remember that if you join a network, there is much more value in taking the time to actually build a community around your brand. If you just are creating profiles to get a link, you aren’t doing much to add real value to your campaign.

These 3 tips are just to get the ball rolling on your social media marketing campaign. Obviously it takes a lot of work and time to manage a successful social media campaign. But that is a blog post for another day.