Social Media Overwhelm And How To Avoid It
Friday, April 17, 2009 at 2:09PM If you're new to the online marketing world, it can be pretty overwhelming at first or (even second) glance. Social Media sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and the new hot spot, Twitter are to online world what the local Chamber of Commerce mixers and Toastmasters are to those marketing offline.
With so much available and so many social media communities, where do you start?
It all depends on what you sell and who you want to sell it to.
Let's face facts. If your target market is 70+ year olds who don't even have an email account (and who don't want one), you're not going to find them "tweeting" on Twitter on sending out a shout on Digg.
If however, you're targeting 30, 40 or 50 somethings who are internet savvy(and most are) then social media sites will open up a world of opportunity for you.
The two hottest social media sites right now are Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has nearly 200 million people in it's population and Twitter is coming up fast. With Twitter, you broadcast or "tweet" a 140 character or less message to your group of followers, who in turn "tweet" their message to their followers and so it goes.
People in this online community share things like motivational quotes, a great book review, a new piece of web content or even what they had for lunch. Anything you'd talk about or share with friends and co-workers, you can talk about on Twitter.
The biggest hurdle you'll face will be finding your target market and not spending most of your waking hours just being socialwith nothing tangible (I'm talking dollars, here) to show for your efforts.
Social media can take up a huge amount of your time if you're not careful. What seems like 15-20 minutes of replying to comments can easily turn into hours. Not good unless some real business has been generated from those conversations.
Beware though, it an become addicting and that's the reason for this article. Social media is an awesome tool for reaching an audience you never would have met any other way, but it's only a tool and not your business itself.
That owl on Twitter won't be writing your paycheck and Mr. Facebook, last time I checked, wasn't handing out any free business grants. In other words,beware becoming a social media junkie and spending all your time doing busy-work (like checking email 10 times a day).
Use these social media sites for finding and connecting with targeted clients and business associates. Stick to a game plan of only looking for those folks who are truly interested in what you do and what you have to say.
Social media is a marketing tool that everyone can benefit from when you discipline yourself to do it right. Limit your social media time (set a timer if you have to) so it enhances, but doesn't replace, your current marketing efforts. Do that and you'll have all the business success you could ever want with none of the overwhelm.