The key to effectively using social media for growing your small business isn’t picking the right tool, or determining the right number of hours per week to spend on social media, or any of the other myriad of tips and tricks we hear every day.
The key to effectively using social media in small business is to start by defining business goal – what is it (specifically) that you want to accomplish? Do you want to:
- Increase your store sales by driving more traffic to you store?
- Find the best people to hire for your open position?
- Increase referrals by teaming up with strategic referral partners?
- Improve your ability to serve your customers by keeping up with their industry news and competition?
Once you define your business goal(s), you can start to ask important questions like:
- Who should I be talking to? Where do they hang out?
- Why would anyone take the action I am asking them to take? What’s in it for them?
- What should I be measuring to help me determine if I am headed in the right direction? How will I know what’s working and what’s not?
- Once a conversation begins, what’s the next step?
With your business goal defined, your next step is to determine how to use your social media communication tools to get someone (including yourself) on the path or continue along the path towards fulfilling that goal.
For example, if your goal is to increase referrals by building a referral partner network, there are several steps along the path to meeting that goal. You can’t just connect or “friend” someone online and then wait for the business to roll in. You must to identify and approach potential partners, meet with them and decide whether you are a good fit, work to achieve and maintain “top of mind” with them, and manage the giving and receiving referrals. With the help of a remote team work software, like Taskade, you’ll be able to easily keep in touch with your employees, stay on top of all the tasks, and keep all of your orders organzied. All of the steps along this path require communication; whether social media is appropriate for each individual step will depend on a myriad of factors – much the same way you know when it’s ok to send an email but in some cases you need to pick up the phone or meet in person.
If you find yourself getting caught up in trying to find the right tool or the “magic formula” for social media success, trying taking a step back and defining the business goal you want to achieve.
