Start a Social Media Team and market more efficiently online

You have understood the benefits of using social media to engage customers. You know how to get started using Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and a variety of other sites to raise awareness and build your brand. You have grappled with the 7 deadly excuses not to use social media marketing and persuaded the sceptics in your company to give it a try. You even realise that all it takes is a few minutes of social media marketing a day to make a huge difference long term.

So what next?

It’s time to organise your Social Media Team and start marketing more efficiently! Here’s how:

• Identify key members of staff who you think can be roped into your social media marketing plan.
• Find out who already uses one or more social networks and use those skills to your advantage.
• Don’t overlook people who are willing to learn.
• Choose a team leader.
• Get together to work out which social network sites you will be using and decide upon an initial strategy tailored to your audience.
• Assign one person to be responsible for each social media platform you will be using (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, etc.).
• Draw up a list of goals and set tasks for each person to do.
• Get started!

Once your initial plan of action is underway, it is important to keep up a coordinated effort as a team. That way you encourage each other and make sure that your initial enthusiasm and momentum does not fizzle out as the days and weeks go by.

Fix regular meetings (at least once a week) to discuss what each team member is doing and evaluate the results. Help each other out. See what is working and what needs to be improved. Are you getting more fans on your Facebook page? Are people commenting on your Flickr and YouTube accounts? Are your website logs showing new traffic coming from the social media sites? Have reasonable expectations and invest more time in what is actually getting you results.

Subscribe to Google Alerts for your brand name and product names, to find out who is mentioning your business online. Was it a positive comment, or not? How you have responded to this attention? Have you engaged in online conversation with those who are talking about you?

Keep your Social Media Team meetings short and productive, so that you’ll continue to have them in the long term. Just like an athlete training for a marathon, a sustained and consistent effort is what gets you results.

As you go along, develop and improve your social marketing strategy, based on your experiences. Go online and read up about social media to get tips and ideas. Try out new things and different approaches. And don’t be scared to get outside coaching or help with your online marketing strategy.

As time goes by, you should see your efforts paying off, with more people talking about your business online. That is the whole idea behind social media marketing – get others to help you build your web presence, build brand awareness, drive traffic to your site and collect the fruits.

So get started today! Put your Social Media Team together and get ready to take on the Web!

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