When social media sites first appeared on the scene, a lot of people were under the impression that all they had to do to succeed was post a little content on one or more social media sites and then sit back and wait for the sales to come pouring in. But the uncomfortable truth is that this is simply not enough in order to achieve success. If you want to be successful with social media, you need to employ effective, time-tested strategies.
Strategy #1: Target One Social Media Site Initially
One really big mistake a lot of budding web entrepreneurs make is to try to participate in all the different social media sites that are out there. They make a Twitter account, Facebook page, Google+ account, Pinterest and YouTube channel for their business. While all of these sites are great sites to use, trying to manage a ton of different accounts on different social media sites at once is almost impossible when you have little or no experience.
Instead, pick one site and build up some good content on it. When you focus your efforts on one site, you are much more likely to be successful than when you take a scatter-shot approach and attempt to utilize a ton of different sites effectively.
Strategy #2: Set Good Goals
Set SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely) goals. These goals are the best ones to set, because they are the ones that you are the most likely to achieve.
Don’t make the mistake of setting vague goals with no deadlines. These goals are the ones you will be the least likely to achieve.
Instead, make a specific goal like trying to get 50 people to like one of your comments on a blog or 100 new followers. Make sure you also set yourself deadlines. Without a deadline, you will have problems generating enough internal pressure to make sure you accomplish what you need to accomplish.
Strategy #3: Focus on Facebook
If you don’t have tons of free time every day, it is probably in your best interest to focus on Facebook. While there are tons of up-and-coming social media sites that are starting to compete with Facebook, Facebook is still king. Build up a substantial user base on Facebook and put up a lot of content there, and you will be well on your way to carrying out a successful social media advertising campaign.
Strategy #4: Remember that Content is King
Good content is the ultimate key to success with social media. If there is nothing people enjoy reading on your social media sites, you will not be a success. Remember that promotional content should only comprise between ten to twenty percent of the content on your site.
Do not make the mistake of putting too much promotional content up. If you do this, you will end up turning off your readers, and they will get the impression that you are just in it for the money, or, even, worse, a spammer.
Strategy #5: Measure, Measure, Measure
Measuring everything is a good strategy. It is the only way you can know whether what you are doing is really effective. How else can you really know whether or not what you are doing is working or not?
Fortunately, there are tons of great tools you can use to measure how well you are doing on various social media sites. And, as an added bonus, many of them are free.
Strategy #6: Be Consistent
Working diligently every day on your social media efforts is tough; there is no doubt about it. But there is no other way if you want to be successful.
Try to spend at least an hour a day making content for or managing your social media sites. If you can consistently invest one hour of work a day, you will probably do well in the long run. Try and avoid the at times nearly overwhelming temptation to slack off. It is consistent, daily effort that is most likely to pay off in the long run.
Strategy #7: Use Helpful Tools
There are literally tons and tons of different tools that have been invented to help people manage different social media sites more effectively. Save yourself a lot of time and take advantage of them. Avoid making the mistake of trying to do everything the hard way. This will only end up wasting time in the long run.
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