Social Media – Are You Peeing Into the Wind?

As a man I have been blessed with ‘outdoor plumbing’ giving me the ability to more easily relieve myself than a woman, when the urge strikes.  As a young boy you learn early to determine which direction the wind is coming from so as to not drench yourself.

When you don’t take into consideration WHEN to post to a Social Media site, you run the risk of peeing on yourself instead of your intended target.

Sorry for the mental image, but the point is, you need to research when and to whom, you  are trying to engage with on your various Social Media platforms or you all your hard work will not hit your intended market.

Ask Yourself Tough Questions

First thing you need to research is, who is your intended audience?

Will I target current clients or prospective new clients?  Are they typically Facebook users?  Google+ users?  Yelp?  Foursquare? Twitter?  Vine?  If the demographics of your clients/prospective clients are very image/picture focused, are you spending time on providing them these images?  Does Instagram or Pinterest serve your customers in a positive way or do they even care?  Do they even know what these sites even are?  Do they require direct engagment/conversation?  Do they need access to technical information?

Your target audience may not even typically engage in social media as a source of information or interest as it relates to your product or service.

The second thing you must know is how does your customer use the internet as part of process in purchasing your specific product or service.

Do they simply want pictures to get ideas?  Do they require detailed specifications on your product?  Do they need to be shown where/how to use your product?  Will they simply be asking questions or trying to identify knowledge gaps?  Will comparison shopping between you and your competition be of paramount concern?

Depending on the answers to these and several other questions you should be asking of your social media initiatives, does social media make sense to focus on?

Another question to ask yourself as it pertains to your social media campaigns and your customers is, do I have the time/resources to commit to proper social media or will I just be half-assing it?

The final question you should consider is, how will I engage with my clients & prospective clients?

Will I be providing them with valuable information in which to make an informed purchase?  Will I simply be advertising to them?  Do I want them to be able to engage directly with me?  Will I simply be branding to prospective customers?  Am I only building a platform that ‘yells’ at customers?

Take A Step Back

I’m sure your experience as it relates to your company is that if it is worth doing, it is worth doing 100%.  There are two ways to give 100% to your social media outreach: 1) hire the right 3rd party to do the job; 2) re-focus your current resources/employees/budget to giving it enough attention.

With the proper questions being asked of your prospective 3rd party solution, you should have some solid success.  In reference to #2, if your in-house resources aren’t properly educated, no matter how ‘focused’ they are, your results have no chance of being maximized unfortunately.

Of course, if you haven’t gone through the vetting process of asking yourself even the three simple questions noted above, no matter how much time or money your throw at your social media endeavour, it won’t be successful.

Finally…

So all in all, a great strategy doesn’t have a hope if you don’t properly determine IF you even require a social media strategy… just like peeing before checking the direction of the wind!