Social Networks – Are You in the Right Ones?

Let’s say you, the business owner, want to start marketing your business using social media and, more specifically, social networks. So you hire a virtual assistant or a social media assistant to help you get going and she sends you a proposal with a list of networks she will get you on. Or maybe you do it all yourself (after all, it’s not rocket science or, say, web design) and quickly jot down a “must-do” sites.

Now, let me take a wild guess here.  It’ll be LinkedIn, Twitter and either a Facebook profile or even a fanpage. You might have YouTube on your (or your VA’s) list as well and a couple other ones. Once everything is set up, you or your VA (or the two of you) start spending time “networking” and “marketing”, and “building relationships” and “creating a loyal community” and doing all sorts of other interesting and time-consuming things. It’s fun really, this social networking thing, except you realize at some point that you’re just not getting anything tangible (aka money, customers, buzz, subscribers, etc) out of it.

Well, it might be a problem with how you define and track your social networking goals. Or it might be something else entirely. Namely, that you’re spending all that time and money essentially “barking up the wrong tree”. Yep, your or your assistant’s arbitrary choice of social networks might be to blame for lack of the results.

Here’s an actual advice from a virtual assistant on the subject of which social networks a client needs to be on (mind you, this VA hasn’t even asked if the client is in B2B or B2C type of business; whether he sells products or services; and what specific goal is he trying to achieve anyway):

I would start a client with Facebook and LinkedIn, see how those go and then maybe add Twitter and/or Digg.

My immediate question is this – how long do you think it’d take this VA to “see how those go” and at what cost to the client?

My point is this – when you or your virtual assistant put together a to-do list for social networking, ask a simple WHY question, such as “why do you think this is the right network for my business?” And please, do some listening first.

Don’t be afraid to sign up for 5, 10 or even 20 social networks. After all, it takes only a couple of minutes to create basic accounts on each (your business name, brief description, site URL, you know the drill). Then start listening. Set up searches for your keywords, subscribe to RSS feeds, follow others, join groups just to listen, lurk to your heart’s content. Keep track of what you see and hear – are there any mentions of your brand, your product/service, your comeptitors, the needs your business fills? Who says what and how often it’s being said, that type of thing.

After a while you’ll get a pretty good idea of your top 3 networks. These aren’t just the popular ones, but the ones that are popular with your target audience AND that are relevant to your brand, your product. They are also the sites with features that you can use in your marketing (i.e. if the only video you plan n having is a 2-min company promo, then why bother with YouTube). These social networks will be at the core of your social networking strategy. Now you can start tactical implementation – creating extended profiles, building a fan page, starting a group, connecting, talking, status updating, etc.

Of course, listening takes time. But you know what they say about people who rush in, right? Besides, lurking is cheap, much cheaper than, say, building fan pages.

Related posts:

1. Connecting to Competitors on Social Networks
2. Disappointed with Social Networking?
3. How is Social Media Used for Business?