Less about creating a 'social media buzz' than you might imagine

Bees are most concerned with hive objectives.
(Photo by Bruce Hudson)

Consider the following statement:

Social media is a key way to communicate to key individuals in ways that adds value in terms of getting our enterprise to where we want it to go.

Social media is the new 'buzz word' in marketing. Earlier today, I took a break, and took the picture to the right of the bee - and got to thinking. With bees, their main concerns are those of the hive, usually the ones seen are collecting nectar. Part of their job, according to documentaries, is to communicate to other bees where to go for the best results.

For any enterprise, it's the same, though now we can more easily than every before use these tools to  'create a buzz', I sometimes read posts and shake my head - maybe I miss how some posts contribute to the enterprise's objectives.

OK, so what's your objective?

My objective here for this post is simple. I am creating a resource so that you, the reader, can hopefully be inspired to think about your social media efforts in terms of your enterprises' objectives. What I get in return - and I'm being brutally honest here - includes:

• To help people with social media marketing by adding value based on my experiences
• Attract a growing audience through demonstrating competence and knowledge
• To gauge interest in this topic
• To exercise my 'creative writing muscles'
• Attract new business and contact that lead to new business

Questions to consider

What are your enterprise's objectives? Have you got a written plan? How well are the posts you make on social media serving those objectives? How consistently are you creating posts? Is timing important? What are the results of previous posts? What incremental improvements are you making to the way you use social media? How are you measuring your effectiveness? (Try www.klout.com - it provides a basic measurement tool - however the best is to measure your sales.) Calculate (if you can) how 

Note that I am not happy with all of my answers to the above questions. However I am happy that my answers today are better than they were last month - in short - I'm working on it and believe best results are a combination of working on and working in social media!

Recommendations

I would recommend doing following five things for your social media.

1. Consider your enterprises' written objectives (and if you don't have any, get some - FAST).
2. Calculate your spend (include your time, multiplied by your hourly rate)
3. Work out what benefits you are gaining from you posts
4. Create a way of measuring your effectiveness that suits you
5. Create a plan to incrementally improve your social media marketing (then work it.)

Initially, for every 60 minutes you spend with social media, it would be good to spend 20 to 30 minutes planning.

I hold great hopes for social media. It seems that positive results are clearer to see than they were a year ago.

Go well.

Bruce Hudson

Gantt NZ Limited

www.gantt.co.nz