Matt Baril

  

   As you probably know by now, it’s easy to spend a whole day on Social Media websites not accomplishing much. Effectiveness should be central to your strategy if you wish to get the best results out of Social Media, and maybe have a life, you know with real people like friends and family! After some reading, some critical thinking and some trials and errors here are things I’ve learned and that I think you should consider if you’re serious about Social Media and want to use it professionally:  

 

·         Have a personal/corporate mission statement. This is a good starting point, because it will help you to stay authentic. It’s easy to try to write and say things you think people want to read or hear, but it’s most likely to fail in the long run. You might be wrong about what people really want to read/hear and by not being yourself, Social Media will become a burden for you, something unnatural in which you have to put effort. This may seem obvious, but as your followership will start growing you’ll probably feel pressure at some point not to let your people down and that’s where the risk kicks in. A mission statement will also help you being more consistent in what you say and how you say it. If you don’t have a mission, here are questions that could help you:

 

 

 

  

·         Figure out what you want to get out of Social Media. Do you want to sell your products, build up your brand, or your personal credibility? Maybe you just want to keep in touch with friends and experiment with Social Media? Whatever it is, make sure you figure it out. Many people have no clear idea of what they want to do with Social Media and they become scattered and inconsistent, and this will alienate your audience and might make them leave. If you plan to use Social Media for business purposes, according to an article published on mashable, there are at least five ways to use Social Media: 

 

You might want to give a read to this DoshDosh article also. Finally, figuring out what you want to get from Social Media is also very helpful since it will allow you to create your own strategy.

 

·         Create your strategy. Now is time to do some research and see what tools would be best aligned with what you want to get from Social Media. You want a job? LinkedIn might be a great place to start. You want to build up your brand? Twitter, Facebook and Youtube might be tools you want to have a look at. Etc. No matter what your strategy is, make sure it’s dead simple. It has to be easy to remember and to share. The last thing you want is a list for your strategy, cause if it’s too complicated, you’re almost sure to give up on it. You’ll also save time by targeting a set of tools that are well adapted for what you want to do. However, the beauty of Social Media is that it’s not defined, there is no restriction in the way you use it. You want to use Twitter to find a job, great go ahead! Use your creativity and do something special! There are no wrong tools in Social Media, it all depends of how you use it, how you make yourself noticeable. No matter what tools you decide to use, stick to them, otherwise this will get out of hand and you’ll be spending your days and nights on Social Media websites. I’ve personally decided to use LinkedIn, Twitter and a Blog and I stick to it. 

 

·         Set goals. Strategy is good, but without goals it’s most likely to go nowhere. Now, setting goals might sound way easier than it really is. It could be based on the number of followers you have, the number of hits you get, your sales increase, recommendations you get, etc. But most of these measures are biased. Not all your followers are high quality followers, actually most of them might just follow you in the hope you’ll follow them. Hits on a web site might be boosted with some advertisement, but it doesn’t mean people are actually taking the time to read your articles. How do you make the difference between an increase in sales due to traditional marketing tools (eg. Posters, commercials, flyers, etc.) and an increase due to Social Media? Those are not easy questions and there has been a lot of discussion about Social Media and ROI (return on investment). There are mainly 2 schools of thought on this, one says pure business ROI is the only way to go, money vs result, and the other one claims it’s useless to keep track of your results with traditional ROI since Social Media is redefining the way we do business and marketing. I’d say both are very important, you want to know how many visitors produce how much revenue, but you also want to know about your brand awareness and whether your reputation is in good shape. These are much more difficult to measure, but do have an important impact on your business. For a great article about measuring Social Media, read this article from Mashable. Finally, just like any other goals, your goals should be SMART. This is an acronym that is widely used in business schools and something you should be aware of. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. For a more detailed explanation, look up on Wikipedia. 

 

·         Take action. This is probably the most obvious step. Make sure you do what you have plan to do. Follow the plan.  

 

·         Monitor your progress. You want to know whether you’re achieving your goals or not. That’s why having measurable goals is convenient, and these goals should be evaluated and reviewed on a regular basis. If they are not realistic or too easy to reached, it’s important to adjust consequently. Moreover, you want to see what impact you have and you can use a set of tools that will help you with just that. The first tool is Google Alert which will send you emails (as-it-happens, once a day or once a week) based on the keywords you want. For example you want to track your name, business name or brand and that’s exactly what Google can offer you. I personally track my name as-it-happens, so every time someone publishes anything with the keywords “matt baril” I get an email with the link to the article or web page. The second tool is TweetBeep, which does pretty much the same as Google Alert, but for Twitter. It will send you a digest of all the Tweets that were published and contain your keywords. If you’re interested in tracking tools, read this article from Zubeta.com which presents 10 great tools to keep track of your brand. Your goals shouldn’t be changed unless it’s obvious they are too easy to reach, unrealistic, or not aligned with your strategy, otherwise, don’t change them!  

 

·         Adjust consequently. If you’re not on target with your goals, you have to do something about it. You can ask for help, you can borrow a good book about the topic at your public library, you can try new innovative ways to use Social Media, etc. Your possibilities are endless, but if your strategy is failing to reach your goals and if your goals are realistic, you need to do something about it. Move forward to “Build your Strategy” and iterate once more.