Three Things to Do Before You Go Social

So, you’ve already decided to put your company on social media. You’ve evaluated the pros and cons, did the webinars and are utterly convinced it’s where your company needs to be. Congratulations! However, don’t just click “register.” There are some things you should do first.

1. Do a little stalking.
It’s always good practice to look at what’s already online. Are companies in your field on social at all? How are they doing?

You’ll find the more you look, the more you’ll see. Maybe you’ll notice that businesses in your category are only having success on Pinterest and not on Google+. This is a key insight that will and should influence what social networks your business is on. Don’t waste your time with platforms that don’t reach your target audience.

2. Stick to the golden number – three.
Here’s the truth: Most people only log onto three social networks a day. One of these is usually Facebook. So unless you have the time, money and management gurus on your side, you might not want to be on every social community out there.

Ideally, you would want to be on three distinct and quite different platforms: One platform that refers traffic to your site (Twitter, Pinterest), one that retains people to develop a community (LinkedIn, Facebook) and one to host content (YouTube, your own company forum).

3. Plan far, far (Did I mention FAR?) ahead.
I cannot count the amount of times I’ve run across an empty profile or page. If you’re going to put effort into making a social media platform, make sure you have something to put on it before you create it!

In the social media community, there’s a little secret known as a content calendar. Basically, social media managers like myself pre-plan posts. For the entire month, we lay out the “what” and “when” behind our cyberspace information.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t repost or share current information. In fact, some days, you won’t even need to have planned posts. But, it’s good practice to be consistent and not rely on others for information. If there’s nothing too exciting going on online, you want to be the person who can bring the excitement.

The Point:
Above all remember that deciding to put your company on social media is only half the battle. Social media is a living machine. Be prepared to invest time.