Are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube a Waste of Time?

yes – if you are inconsistent, don’t have a marketing plan and invest the wrong amount of time and effort.

What does digital marketing mean to you?

Today I received an email that offered a webinar that covered:

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY.
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence.
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business.
5. Why Social Media is changing marketing forever.

and for those of us in the space they are easy – so here are my top tips

How to ensure your social media activity adds value to your business

1. The top 3 proven strategies for ensuring LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube add value to your business
   • Regularity – adhoc just does not work, recency is everything
   • Consistency –  ensure people know the subject you are talking about and expect it
   • Transparency – being honest, if you are promoting your materials – say so, if its an affiliate say so – but remember to promote anything you think will be of value to your followers
2. Why the WRONG STRATEGY can hurt you even more than NO STRATEGY
   • If what you are doing is attracting people that are not interested, then this is worse than useless as you are wasting time, energy and effort… not to mention opportunity!
3. How automation DONE RIGHT can quickly double the effectiveness of your Social Media presence
   • Its about regularity – automating or scheduling things in advanced can help ensure your presence
   • It need not take all day and night to have an effective presence, but planning what to do when is more than just a few minutes a week. You need an effective strategy and plan
4. CRITICAL MISTAKES people are making when using Facebook and Twitter for business
   • sell.. sell.. sell – its NOT about pushing just your own products and services – it is about adding value and building trust with your existing and potential customers. make sure they trust you and when they are ready they will buy
   • use one to push the other – there is nothing worse than reading a message telling you to go elsewhere to read more. Sure its fine on  occasion, but people on Facebook want to be on Facebook, and people on twitter are there for twitter, not to be told to “go to my Facebook page2 – how to disengage the majority of your potential followers in one easy step!
5. Why Social Media is CHANGING MARKETING forever
   • Marketing and accessibility is changing faster than ever before. In the past you needed a sizeable budget to have a TV advert to get to 100s of thousands of people, now with no cash outlay, but with people time you can access the world. This factor is here to stay
   • The challenges is now not getting a message out that a potential customer might see – but ensuring that the message says the right things, to the right people, at the right time – and that the message can be heard/ seen over the noise that is the internet
   • Marketing is no longer just for big multinationals, anyone that is prepared to put time and effort into learning the skills, and creating content that people are interested in can access their potential customers
   • The tools available are changing on a month by months basis – and almost all of the training courses and certainly the qualifications are out of date before they are run. Being agile and prepared to try things first and make mistakes are the keys to future success

How to write a Digital Marketing strategy

Writing a digital marketing strategy is no different from any other strategy, with one exception. Most other strategic plans are written by functions or verticals, for social media to work any strategy and resulting action plan needs to be cross company, cross levels, verticals and functions as well as engaging with the “crown sourcing” that are your people. You can never have too many people in the social media space – providing they are all singing from the same sheet.

Digital marketing strategies for online success

Is social media free marketing? – well there is little or no outlay – but there is a significant time and people cost. Just because it is “low cost” “no cost” entry does not make it the most cost effective strategy. Indeed to do it well it can take a lot of time and money – have you planned and budgeted correctly? are the right people doing it?

Before you take ANY advice from any social media consultants, look at their blog, their website, twitter and facebook pages. Where are they ranked in Alexa? do they do this stuff for their own business – or are they “too busy” doing it for others?