Social Media Marketing begins with a single message. That message is distilled from the content that you already have, blended with today’s top stories and filtered through your brand to come out as the message that you want to share with the world. What does all that mean?
Branded
First – you need to know what your brand conveys to people. I get asked about branding, and what if I don’t have a brand? I tell people that even though they consciously do not know it, they have a brand that they are already portraying to the world. It may not be the one that they would like to portray, but it exists nonetheless.
To fine tune your brand, you must decide what your business stands for. Your values will help guide you to the proper branding message. If you have not, take a moment to write down your primary values for your business. Write a company mission statement. These will help you filter how you come up with your brand.
Want a brand example? Look at GoDaddy’s brand. The ads that they had throughout the last 10 years have led you to see their brand as the “Internet Lifestyle” where they had sexy spokespersons telling you about having a website. The brand turned off a whole segment of the population who despised the sex sells approach. But recently, they have gone in a different direction, with a “it’s go time!” campaign that makes it appear like it is fun to own a website – while still being able to work hard on your business. This has helped change the perception of the company, by attracting the hard working business owner who does not have time to build a website.
Content
In the day to day operation of your business, you create a lot of content that you may not even be aware of. When you teach a customer how to use your product, that is content that can be used elsewhere. Every blog post, audio and video you create has the potential for becoming a social media message.
I write a lot of emails. So I use my emails as content. It is rare that I do not post my emails on my blog. It is also rare that I do not post the email (or a link to the blog post created from the email) on Twitter or Facebook. This use of my emails for social media has gotten me a lot of subscribers on a daily basis.
Currency
What happens today is best shared with people. Especially if what you did today could help someone or inspire someone. Sometimes a news story reminds you of something you recently did in your business, or maybe you can tie in something you do in your business with a current event story. Those are the best uses of social media marketing, because the more current your content, the better the opportunity for your message to get picked up by those who like to share.
All it takes is a couple of shares by the right people, and your message is spreading around the world! The question is always, “how do I know which of my posts will go viral?” The answer is not as simple, because we don’t know what will get shared. The truth is, if you don’t post anything, none of your messages will be shared.
So start your social media marketing by posting something.
You can share this post, for example, because it will help others discover their social media marketing starting point.
