Marketing through social media channels involves an important strategy when considering your online marketing execution. Many times those attempting a social networking campaign have found updating their blog, feeding their Twitter account and Facebook is more than a nuisance then a help to their ventures, and quickly abandon there channel with a lack of engagement.

Advice on social media marketing is available, and much has been said about the matter.  However much of the over reach of social networks provide advice that complicates social networking.  Here are some guidelines to begin you social network campaigns.

Don’t Just Begin a Campaign

Social Networking is more involved that just posting tweets on you Twitter account and getting likes on your Facebook page(s).

Have A Goal to accomplish

Outside of engaging with old and new friends, you want your social networks to accomplish a goal.  Each tweet or post must be accompanied with measurable data for you, and objective of accomplishment for them.

Whether it be driving traffic to a landing page, signing up for your email subscriptions to your newsletter, or achieving the five dollar widget with the free e-book offering, your social message must present an action to accomplish, offer a goal to fulfill, and be measurable to test if your message or offerings are received or rejected.

You Don’t Have to Babysit Your Social Media

While without data to read, a social media channel without anything on it is a dead social media channel.  In the same vain, simply posting the company’s campaign with minute-by-minute dribble will leave your audience as wet as a drooling dog, and if you have a dog that drools, you know how annoying that is.

With useless offerings, you get useless participation.  No now reciprocates if you are not meeting a need.  Too many updates will drown out your viable, actionable posts and possibly cause your audience to drown in the uselessness of your dribble.  In other words keep your social media posts engaging, focused and  always full of actionable, click worthy content.  If it doesn’t make you our your company noteworthy, it may have been better not said.

In a nutshell, make relevant content, not just filler updates.

It’s not how many you know, but WHO you know, and what they do.

Successful social media channels are measured by people that show appreciation for your content.  While having 100,000 followers or ‘friends’ on your social media channel looks good, but are they waiting for your press releases, sales or offerings, or are you stacking up followers just to count their numbers?

The goal here is to have your audience follow your calls-to-action that click on what your offering.  You do not need a wild pack of hungry dogs snapping at the bloody meat in your hands, you need satisfied followers that are alert, aware and motivated to follow cues so you can move them forward.

Your post must pose a task to your audience, participating as a new, former or prospective customer let them recommend and post on your behalf the feedback on your products.

If all your audience does is give you the ‘thumbs-up’ on Facebook, how is that meaningful to your product, service, offering or brand.  However if they accomplish something that does benefit you, say gaining a subscription to your email newsletter, or comments on your product, then you gain opportunity to either make the sale, or fix a problem.  Regardless it accomplishes a task.

In a nutshell: Gain individual assets to your campaigns, as well as simple admirers.

It doesn’t have to  involve anything new, it involves social saturation.

The goal is to gain attention of your social media through self promotion.  Using targeted ads relevant to interests, topical events and holidays and social relevant and TIMELY content to cause them to fulfill a given task, no matter how large or small it is.  Your goal is to saturated your audience with your presence without overwhelming them with wasteful overexposure.

You don’t need to offer fluff, overwhelming your audience with how good you or your product is is mindless fluff. An honest social media campaign does not consist of relentless promotion, but offers solutions to your audiences needs, even if they do not know they need it.

Campaigns should be geared towards winning those who can be an asset to you, your business or your product.  Engage your audience through contests, polls and utilize followups through email marketing to keep them in the loop.  Your campaign should segue into people not only fulfilling your offering, but giving others a reason to advertise for you.

Don’t simply focus on the dollars. Your audience wants to be recognized as more than a dollar sign. Your campaign is not just about dollar signs, but also an investment. returning multiple values, not just sales. It should bring in leads, new sub-audiences, more accurate demographics and more people assets.

In a nutshell you don’t have to offer anything new, use a campaign that utilizes a bigger picture.

as we enter into a new realm of online marketing, your social campaigns should cause your audience to act and think a bit differently as they apply to existing advertising mediums.

Social media advertising will result in people who act, think and react differently because their priorities change and they change often.  Making your appeals to them as participants rather than customers will allow you to develop interaction with your audience on a personal level, and then accomplish why we have this social media to begin with.

Utilizing this in business social media campaign will demonstrate the most cost-effective, properly executed social media strategy, and cause your audience to carry much of the weight of your social media campaigns for you.

Did this article help you? please let me know if you have any other advice regarding social media.