Evident Productions

Many people jump into the river of social media and networking without having a plan. Plans in the current virtual social world are crucial to help in knowing whether you’re succeeding in connecting with your market, or just wasting time with building content.

Here are six key steps to take in order to make sure your social networking efforts obtain success:

1) Determine where your market is.

Just because “everyone” is joining or telling you to create a presence on a particular social networking site doesn’t necessarily mean that YOUR AUDIENCE is there. Is your audience young, or artistic based? Then maybe you should consider Myspace instead of putting time and energy into Facebook that consistently has a growing older crowd. Is your market Latino, or is most of your audience based in Central or South America? Then maybe you should look at establishing a presence on Hi5 and focus your efforts there.

Knowing where your audience is, what their age range, and other key components that make up YOUR markets’ unique DEMOGRAPHICS are CRITICAL in targeting them with SUCCESSFUL results.

2) Create content that best fits your market.

Just because YOU like something, DOESN’T MEAN that you should POST IT. Many people doing updates, or posts for talent, or corporations I’ve noticed will post personal pictures (their horses, or cat in the living room, etc.). If you’re trying to establish a corporate image on a fan page for a BBQ sauce manufacturer, then showing your pro-PETA t-shirt off in a post may not be the best way to establish credibility with your audience. THINK about what you’re GOING TO POST, and ask yourself, “Is THIS going to HELP in connecting or gaining SUPPORT from my AUDIENCE?”

3) What are you going to share?

In the same way that content relevance is crucial, sharing information can mean the difference between GAINING “fans or friends,” and LOOSING viewers. If you’re using twitter to connect, don’t just re-tweet something because it sounds like a good idea to you, or gives YOU the chance to win something. Make sure you VALUE THE EYES of your viewers, and keep that in your content “filtering process” ALL THE TIME. Having discussions about topics relating to your products, or about a press release are great ways to establish a personal connection with your audience. Timing these immediately after a scheduled announcement, and then taking time to dialogue with your viewers will help in BOOSTING your followers, and fan numbers. Just randomly posting things that you deem “shareable” will only WASTE YOUR TIME, prove that you have a serious lack of consistency, and never give you the traffic to your relevant pieces of content.

4) How often are you going to share your content?

Coming up with a CONSISTENT and clear schedule BEFORE you start, and then adjusting accordingly as time goes on will help ESTABLISH relevance, AND give your market REFERENCE POINTS to anticipate new information. Again, jumping into social networking without a plan will cause scheduling to never get into a consistent groove. You will ALWAYS be playing CATCH UP or only generate futile attempts at getting content out on time more than two or three times in a row. Developing a schedule will not only give CONSISTENT CONNECTION for your viewers but it will also help to ELIMINATE BURN-OUT from you and your team involved in the content process.

5) Encourage interaction with your content from fans and followers.

Many people go into social networking and media with the mind set of “if I build it THEY will come.” Yeah, and you’re the ONLY ONE out there with A VOICE. Go ahead and give THAT a whirl with a social networking site like Facebook who boasted during the 2010 winter Olympics that they NOW HAVE over 400 MILLION users signed up on their site. 400 million...lots of potential, but also if you don’t approach it right your content could be as HARD TO FIND as a needle in a haystack.

Having content that people can comment on, post about, or share is a GREAT and very effective way to build the POWER OF YOUR BRAND to viewers. This allows people to “associate,” and also share YOUR content with those that may not even be aware of you.

Don’t allow your people JUST TO POST, or create a DISCUSSION, or BLOG for viewer comments, but DISCUSS and ENGAGE your audience. When viewers post questions ENGAGE THEM with prompt comments or replies. This will show that you’re not only throwing things out there to establish yourself, but it allows the PERSONAL interaction with people to become a connecting point for them WITH YOU and YOUR PRODUCT.

6) Know your metrics of success-

What works for others, may not work for you. This is similar to the first point but is very critical. Ethnicity, age, religion, favorite car, size of shoe, gender, can all be CRITICAL FACTORS in CONNECTING with YOUR AUDIENCE. Understanding how BIG your market is, WHERE they are located, and setting GROWTH GOALS for YOURSELF are all crucial. What may work for the “Ma and Pop” pizza joint down the street in connecting with their audience MAY work BETTER for YOU than those solutions found by Fortune 500 companies. Then again, it could be completely the opposite.

Do your research, UNDERSTAND your audience, and ask some of your BEST CUSTOMERS, partners, vendors, or supporters what social networking sites THEY currently are on, and why. Then start building a game plan from there. Is YOUR potential market age or gender specific? Then comparing yourself to companies or sites that are having success that are not taking that approach isn’t the right process for you. Just because someone is successful also DOESN’T MEAN that THEIR measure of success is even the HALF way point for you.

Understanding and coming up with YOUR OWN strategy will help you start out as a SUCCESS, and help you retain CONSISTENCY while allowing you to reap the BENEFITS and REWARDS of your work instead of discontinuing as a result of burnout.