Social media for business

How many social media accounts do you have? Next, how many of your accounts are you using to implement a disciplined social media marketing campaign?

My suggestion is, if your online accounts are not part of a focused and purposeful marketing strategy, you are burning daylight, my friend.

Take me, for example. Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn. In the past, Facebook and Myspace activity was high, and LinkedIn sat there unengaged.

The game plan:

• Create a social media overall marketing strategy
• Spend your time online working towards your marketing goals
• Eliminate or neglect any and all social media accounts that don’t fit into your marketing strategy
• Be ruthless with your stopwatch - don’t let yourself spend time on fruitless social media accounts

In hindsight, the first two were, in essence, places where discarded friends (and friends who had discarded me) floated back to the top of my attention. At least on-screen, anyway. Time well spent? I say, hell no.

And LinkedIn sat there… Unused, neglected, and misunderstood. Here’s the thing: Linked in is where the real action is. There is very little spamming, the information people post is usually quite accurate (due to the probability your old boss will find out) and people are there to do some real business networking.

If you are resourceful, you can get in front of The President of the Company…whereas before, you couldn’t even talk to his secretary!