Building a successful social media strategy doesn't happen overnight. At the start you'll need to invest a good deal of time, thought and money in attracting fans and followers—and your efforts will need to be sustained.

 

A social media community does not appear by magic and any business who thinks their activity is going to immediately convert into hard sales will be disappointed. It's only after you've built firm foundations that your network will begin to sustain itself through active participation. 

 

 

To achieve this you need to add quality content that adds value for the reader and allows clients and customers to tell their stories - good and bad. It is how you engage with people that attracts them to you and brings them back again.

A social media effort is easy to start, but it can be a challenge to keep going especially for small businesses with so many conflicting demands on their time. But social media is a journey, not a destination

Don't start it unless you are in for the long haul or you are more likely to damage reputation than enhance it.

2 Don't try and be everywhere 

Not all social media sites are suitable for every business. The key is to research which sites your existing customers and likely prospects use and concentrate your efforts on them.

Done properly social media is time consuming. Remember most Facebook users spend more than one hour a day on the site, so it is important you spend the valuable time you have to commit to social media wisely.

 

Don't overextend yourself, concentrate on the sites likely to deliver best results for you. Resist the urge to get involved with all that's new and focus on the platforms most likely to be a good fit for your business.

Your fans and followers are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your business, don't dismiss or ignore their comments and views, act on them. It only takes a click of button for them to leave and they are unlikely to return. More importantly they could damage your reputation by commenting about your inaction on other web platforms putting you on the back foot.

You need to make it worthwhile for someone to start interacting with you online. It all comes back to adding value again. What are you offering potential customers or clients that will make interacting with you worthwhile for them?

You need compelling incentives for people to join your sites. You also need to closely define your key audiences and target them through all available communications channels to drive them to your chosen social media platforms. 

Uploading a clever video to youtube and expecting it to go viral is a non starter. There are 10,000 hours of new video uploaded every day. The chances of yours hitting the spot without an online strategy to get it noticed is zero. You need to be constantly talking new activity up through your other social platforms before during and after posts go live. You need a strategy that involves cross linking every platform you use to create awareness.

It's called social media for a reason. There's nothing social about following thousands on Twitter in a short space of time, it is unlikely anyone will think you are adding any value to their experience by following you back. Success with social media is just like any other business discipline results are achieved one step at a time.

Social media is a discipline like any other, people need to be trained on how to use it properly. How your employees behave on social media sites can have a big impact on your reputation. Setting a social media policy and ensuring those using your platforms on behalf of the business are properly trained is the best way to help your reputation, not hurt it.

The policy should include rules on language and grammar.  Remember the language you use on line reflects the way people think of your organisation. Stick to proper grammatically correct, plain English.

Letting junior staff lead your strategy is not a good idea. Just because they are aware of the technology, are keen and cheap may make them at first seem like the ideal candidates for the role. But this doesn't make them the best people for the job. A successful social media strategy needs to be managed properly.

Would you let a junior member of staff lead your media relations strategy? Of course not, so why entrust them with a platform that could just as easily ruin your reputation as any newspaper story or television broadcast.

It may well be free at the point of sale in a way that advertising and marketing is not, but that does not mean you get it for nothing. 

To be successful it will always need someone's time, effort and expertise. Businesses can't ignore these costs when planning their social media strategies and when evaluating what they're delivering.

Measurement of impact and success is just as important with social media as it is with any other marketing activity.

Of course business should expect some interpretation of social media strategy's 'Return On Investment'. Build this into your strategy at the start, but keep expectations real. Social media like any other marketing discipline has its limitations so make sure you know what they are for your business and keep goals and objectives clear and achievable. There is a wealth of analytic tools out there to report on what your activity is actually achieving, use them to interpret how successfully you are hitting your objectives and use them to tweak activity.

Social media users can spot fake sincerity across the ether so be sincere and genuine in all your activity. 

Don't pretend to be someone you're not. If a blog is from a chief executive then the CEO has to write it. Personality is a big part of your social media brand, users need to think they are interacting with an individual not a corporation. If the CEO doesn't have time to write it then brand the blog as a company blog or appoint someone else to write it. Don't try and pretend to be a third party to try and talk up your own brand or activity, again it is easily seen through you'll only end up damaging your reputation