Everybody is talking about it. Social media is the latest technique in every marketing department’s hit list. Even though the research says that the majority of us are regularly using social media many businesses don’t understand how to make the most of it for their marketing.

Whether or not your business currently embraces social media, all the research makes a strong case for every business to evaluate social media opportunities.

Facebook now accounts for 20% of all time spent online in the UK [Source: Internet Advertising Bureau Fact Sheet, IAB, March 2010] as well as clocking up the equivalent to 1 in every 7 page views of UK internet content. [Source: Experian Hitwise, October 2009]

Twitter now receives more web traffic than MySpace in the UK. [Source: Experian Hitwise, September 2009]

The question is how to evaluate whether it is right for your business.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

Do I have the time and resources to regularly engage in conversations about my brand and business?

Finding extra time is a challenge for any business. With social media marketing the costs to 3rd parties is very low, but for most the time investment will be high. This is often the hidden trap that many starting on a social media campaign fall into.

According to 54% of companies, the biggest barrier to better social media engagement is lack of resources

Don’t enter into social media lightly as sparse and erratic content updates are the online equivalent to having a shop that is rarely open. Customers will find the answers and information they need elsewhere, and if you want them to return you’ll need to invest a lot more time and effort to get them back. A poorly executed social media effort can often be worse than no effort at all.

If you are pushed for time, don’t despair there are solutions available, which we’ll get to later.

Do I have consistent, valuable content to share regularly with my audience?

If you do, you have a great opportunity to be engaging in regular conversations with your customers. The social media channels of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are a fantastic resource for keeping in front of your customers. However, your marketing messages will always be better received if they are part of a two way dialogue and promoted subtly without the hard sell.

Having the content to share regularly is often more than half the battle to a successful social media campaign. If you have it, get thinking about how you can use it.

If you don’t think you have the content available don’t worry. Quite a few businesses we come across don’t think they have much content available, but in pretty much every instance we’ve been able to uncover plenty.

How will social media help achieve my business goals?

If you answered yes to one or both the previous questions, you are in a good position to start thinking about how the various social media channels can help achieve your key goals. First you need to establish what these are.

• Do you want to build product recognition or spread brand awareness?
• Do you want to just drive sales or enquiries?
• Are you looking for frank feedback to enhance your product or service or explore new opportunities?
• Do you want to reward customer loyalty?
• Do you want to reach out to a new demographic?
• Want to keep tabs on the competition?
• Do you want to position yourself as an expert in your market?

Using social media correctly can help achieve all these goals and plenty more, making it an incredibly valuable resource. Before you start, you’ll need clear objectives. These will help you make the right decisions and allow you to track how well you’re doing and where you may need to adjust.

If you have or are evaluating social media marketing for your business, we’d love to get your thoughts on how it is going, and what measures you’ve used to evaluate it.

Many businesses we come across have the content and can identify the clear benefits of using social media, but they don’t have the time or the skills to get it off the ground. This is where using the skills of an agency with good experience in social media can be of massive benefit.

At LexisClick we’ve successfully implemented social media campaigns for a number of our clients. If you need some help getting your social media strategy off the ground, contact us for a free impartial discussion on how social media could benefit your business.

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