A friend of mine went to a Social Media for Small Business conference recently. He’s a small business owner, and has been thinking about using social media for a while.
He enjoyed the conference and made some great connections while there. Yet something he said worries me, and that’s the need to be everywhere.
According to the social media expert that was speaking at the conference, businesses need to be on as many social media channels as they can. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Ning, blogging, Facebook Places, Tumblr, etc – the list goes on.
The reasoning? You never know where your customer is going to be, so you need to be in all the places they could be.
Bullcrap.
You can (and do) know where your customer is going to be by doing the research – a social media audit, for example.
Because of this map, you can tell demographics, spend decisions, social network use, optimum time of day for social network use and promotions, and much, much more.
You can then use this information to understand where you need to be, when you need to be there, and what you need to be saying/doing while there. This targeted approach makes sure no-one’s wasting their time, and goals can be set and results measured.
It’s not rocket science – it’s a marketing strategy.
Saying you need to be on every site because your customers might be is like saying you need to advertise in every single newspaper because some of your customers might read it.
Sure, they might. But if your customers are vegetarians, would you advertise in Slaughterhouse Weekly?
No – so why take that approach with your social media strategy? Instead, be where you need to be.
Make sense?
