Social media marketing – tips for success in 2010

Read my 9 top tips for social media marketing  below.

As entrepreneurs and smaller businesses marketing is a vital yet difficult concept for many of us. Many of us hate it and want to find the “quick fix”.

What prompted me to write this article was receipt this morning of a ‘newsletter’ I get that goes straight to my junk mail. It is from Kenneth Yu “the Puppet Master” (take care with his sites as they take a lot of processing power and clever pop ups). To be honest I liked the hype he created but his newsletter are for me are too frequent and contain little of depth or value. Is he a one trick pony? His latest however caught my eye. He included the message:

“You reap what you sow…”

In other words, the more time, resources and energy you put into something, the bigger the harvest you’ll reap — be it financially, relationally or spiritually. So if you put in your elbow grease and late nights, you’re guaranteed success right? WRONG!

Or more rather, the Sowing and Reaping analogy is only a half truth.

You see, we followed this principle to the tee… We “slaved like dogs”, yet we were “rewarded” with disappointment, stress and relationship strain.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes you work so hard, and yet don’t seem to reap the bountiful harvest you deserve?

Here’s something that may come as surprise for you…

There’s a missing dimension to the concept of sowing and reaping. If you miss this, you’re potentially setting yourself back months, even years from where you’re supposed to be.

In one of the Biblical parables, Jesus talked about the parable of the sower.

The gist of it was that the farmer was scattering seed across the land. However, he was rather indiscriminate about it and the seeds fell on stony paths, thorny soil, shallow earth and fertile ground.

The seeds that fell on the former 3 types of soil ended up with stunted growth, or worse… Not growing at all.

Here’s the awesome part…

The seed that fell on fertile ground produced a magnificent harvest of tenfold, hundredfold… and even a thousand-fold!

What made the difference?

It’s about WHERE the sower threw his seed.

That’s right. WHERE you sow is probably more important then HOW MUCH you sow.

It’s a principle we call STRATEGIC SOWING. And we believe it’s the single most important trait of mega-successful entrepreneurs.

Once you master this, you’ll get a return on investment that’ll blow your socks off. Because every ounce of blood, sweat and tears is going to give you a windfall.

One of the biggest bittersweet lessons we learned is that Laura and I may be world-class marketers, but we’re still newbies in terms of building a long-term sustainable business.

The single most vital trait that separates entrepreneurs from marketers is the ability to effectively allocate one’s limited resources. Unfortunately, it’s an ability that comes from hard-worn experience rather than any $997 home study course.

This was as a reflection to his own business performance over the last few months, Insightful – yes – accurate – no!

The saying “You reap what you sow” actually is a little different from the account given here.

Lets look at the phrase – what it is saying is you get back from WHAT you sow. Sure the location (WHERE) is important – but more so is the quality of the seeds you sow – sow seeds that are dead and nothing will grow no matter how much hard work you put in. What we agree on is the effort in terms of hours is not the key here.

Kenneth was right about the location – like any good marketing strategy we need to understand the environment in which we operate, the strengths and weaknesses of our service and marketing messages, we also need to look at the detail and quality of what we are sowing.

In social media marketing it is common for volume to rule the day (HOW we sow), but it is the content (WHAT) and location (WHERE which site/ social media vehicle) we put our messages that count.

The social media “marketing gurus”

Without exception all of these ‘marketing gurus’ talk glibly about keywords and other technical terms, yet all fail to inform the reader of HOW to go about identifying these things. Keywords and search engine optimisation is not that difficult, however what is more difficult it really identifying your niche. Many of the web based marketing sites talk about finding your niche – what they fail to tell you is YOU  & I are their niche! – people trying to sell or promote their business on the internet. They have their niche – and on the web it is one of the easiest groups to find! We all want quick fix solutions.

So the next time you work extra long hours, look at WHAT you are doing and WHERE you are doing it. If you are a regular contributer on more than 3-5 forums or communities – then it suggests that you are spreading yourself too thinly – over the holiday period cut some out…

9 Top tips to focus your social media marketing strategy:

1. Identify 5 keywords which your customers will use to find you
2. Identify 1 site where your peers are (for CPD & networking) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
3. Identify 2 (max) physical networking groups and get active – remember networking is about relationships NOT sales – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
4. Identify 3 sites where your customers are (for sales) – stay with them for up to 12 months & evaluate
5. Using your 5 key words only contribute to those that use and focus on the keywords
6. On twitter identify 5 search keywords and set your twitter app to look at those – ignore your time line
7. Find up to 10 blogs that add value to you and add them to your outlook/ RSS feed reader
8. Turn Google off being your home page
9. Print a sheet of paper listing this information, put a heading on it: If I’m doing anything other than these STOP NOW and put it up in a place you can read it while working

Do we reap what we sow? – well only if we are careful with what, where and how we sow

Wishing all my readers a wonderful and successful 2010 and beyond

Mike