How To Achieve A Sustainable Social Media Strategy? Just STOP!

Social media is one of the most talked about buzz words of the 21^st Century – and rightly so! It has transformed the way we (customers) think and you (businesses) act! It’s no longer as simple as going to the local store for the product we want/need. We now research the social media options available to us, ask our peers what they think of it and then we see where we can purchase it to get the best value.

Social media has altered the relationship between brands and consumers – in a good way for us (the consumers) and in a daunting way for you (the business) because it means you have to build a relationship with us!

To achieve a sustainable social media strategy – just use STOP

If a business decides to have a social media presence then it must be well planned, realistic objectives and most importantly it must be sustainable. No point having a social media plan for 2 months, sticking to it and seeing the return (or not!) then just “logging on to post a status update or tweet whenever you get a chance” –  it doesn’t work like that!

# 1. Strategy

Every business needs a business plan, as well as a short term strategy. This is also true for social media. Your social media strategy should not be a standalone plan, it should be a part of your overall marketing approach. Back up your online efforts with offline campaigns, and vice versa. Create a realistic plan in order to reap the return on investment of your time, resources and in some cases money invested into this social media effort.

# 2. Track

The key to any social media (or any digital marketing in fact) is to measure the success/failure of your objectives and goals. While social media is for the most part free, you are investing your time – which in itself is valuable. And so, if an element of your plan isn’t working, or isn’t working as best as it could – then by tracking your social media you will be able to see this and tweak it before time is wasted and damage is done to your brand.

# 3. Objectives

What defines a successful social media campaign? 5,000 twitter followers? 1,000 Facebook fans? Or maybe just 1 sale via your website? No one can tell you what success is…that is up to you. In order to be able to tell if your social media efforts are fruitful, you must set clear realistic goals (also known as Key Performance Indicators – KPIs) and so, if you are not achieving then stop wasting valuable time on that particular element of your plan and tweak it to until it works.

Of course, if you are not reaching any of your goals then perhaps you are being unrealistic and aiming too high? Or maybe social media just isn’t for you and your brand? Consider other digital marketing techniques such as email marketing.

# 4. Pick

There are hundreds of social media sites – it is unrealistic to say have a well run profile on ALL (or even on the top 5: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+) so pick 2 and do them well, only large organisations with marketing departments can afford to allocate human resources and large budgets to growing established brands on all five social networks.

So, social media has become one of the most daunting tasks facing businesses in recent years. Why? Because it takes time, effort, dedication as well as thinking outside the box. However, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages – if social media is done well!

Why Social Media Are Not a Strategy

Are you in business to be popular? Connected? Engaged? You are, or at least you should, be in business to make profit. Because that is what business is about. You may have chosen to be an entrepreneur for many reasons, but if you don’t have a profit you don’t have a business. It really is that simple.
There are many compelling blog posts and snazzy videos that strongly promote the notion that social media are imperative to the success of business. These posts usually incorporate something along the lines of “Social Media, can you afford not to?” Well, I want to put it on record that yes, many businesses can absolutely afford not to “do” social media. In fact, I would go so far as to say that for some businesses, engagement in social media is actually damaging.

The Personal Hygiene Analogy

If personal hygiene were an analogy for marketing, then social media would be perfume. To put this bluntly, perfume is no substitute for the fundamentals of personal hygiene. You need a 365 bathing plan, and perfume is no substitute for that.

What are social media?

The answer is partly in the question. Media, being the plural of medium, are ways to store or communicate information. There are many flavours of media:

• Newspapers ~ print
• TV stations ~ broadcast
• Social media ~ digital

Social media can, like any other media, be used to achieve certain personal or business objectives. And used wisely, these media can work very well for business, but only as part of an actual marketing strategy. It will not work for every business and it is time to be honest about that. A radio advertisement will not work for every business, and it is ridiculous to presume that social media will work for every business. You need to pick the media that is most relevant and appropriate for your business. Sparkplugs on Facebook? I don’t think so.

What Social Media is not

1. A Business Plan
   There are many components to a business plan, but frankly some businesses are so busy faffing around with social media that they’ve lost sight of the bigger picture.  How does your business make profit? What products or services should be sold to optimise profit? These are some of the big questions that need to be answered before you can develop a business plan or a marketing plan or even dream of engaging in social media. For a business, there are really only two business numbers that matter – Cash and Profit.
2. A Marketing Plan
   You need to define your brand and identify your customer before you even begin to draft a marketing plan or select marketing media.
3. A substitute for relevance
   The number of followers you have in any social medium is not an end in itself. Neither is building a community, engagement levels or indeed, (social media aside), the  number of website visitors you have. So many businesses focus on their social media metrics that they forget about the cost of acquisition of a customer or about the profit margin that they should be making. Social media needs to be relevant to your business objectives. There are many worthy and relevant business objectives for social media other than sales, such as brand building, awareness marketing and customer service. These all contribute indirectly to profit. What you and your followers do when they engage with you or visit your website is what is really relevant, not the number of followers that you have.
4. Free
   Social media are not free. Even if you do not allocate an employee or outsource this function, it takes time to create and collate content, to broadcast it and to engage with your community. Time spent on social media can have a massive opportunity cost, if it diverts a business owner from focusing on making profit.

The Social Media Mantra

The bankers’ mantra is well known:
“Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is reality”.
Here’s my adaptation for social media, which I’ll call “The Social Media Mantra”:
“Followers are vanity but profit is sanity.”

What do you think?

Social media are not a strategy. They are, well, a collection of mediums. It seems likely that social media are here to stay. The popularity of individual social media networks may wax and wane, but people have an inherent desire to be connected and social media fills that personal need. However, when it comes to business, relevance is the name of the game. What do you think? Is it really relevant to every business to be using social media?