Article - Managing Your Time in Social Media Marketing By Ezra Silverton, 9th sphere

Managing Your Time in Social Media Marketing

Ezra Silverton , 9th sphere - Social Media Optimization 1 Comments | Add Yours

About The Author:

Ezra Silverton founded 9th sphere (www.9thsphere.com), now an award winning website solutions firm, providing effective website and Internet marketing services that include search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and more. With more than a decade of website experience, 9th sphere provides significant insight in developing effective services for a wide range of businesses.

With all the hype of social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinedIn and the like, corporate marketing teams may be jumping on the bandwagon to be a part of the movement with a clear purpose or strategy. But among all the different marketing tactics that companies undertake, how much time should be allocated to social media marketing?

There are many benefits to social networking websites. From the strictly social, that is the sharing of ideas, comments, and thoughts and making connections, to supporting a community of like minded people, or keeping in contact and up-to-date with friends, family, and colleges, to name a few.

Marketers often use social networking sites to support a community around an industry, company, and or a brand - generating goodwill and gathering constructive feedback from followers. Other businesses may also use social networking for prospecting, sales, recruiting new employees, and technical support.

How do you determine which social networking sites to spend time with, if any? You should reference your company goals and objectives first to determine if Social Media Marketing (SMM) would contribute to achieving them. Look to your intended audience and review which social networking sites they gravitate towards. If your audience consists of mainly seniors who are not Internet savvy, using Twitter may not be a worthwhile tactic.

Generally speaking, Facebook is primarily a consumer oriented website for connecting and sharing with friends. Most users are between the ages of 13-34, slight majority female. Professionals use LinkedIn to manage contacts and exchange information. Most LinkedIn users are generally male, older (35-50+), with a higher education, and of a higher income bracket. Twitter is a micro-blogging site for those who have something to say this very moment. Its users are spread out in terms of age and are more interested in pop cultural topics. Most of the data concerning the varying demographics of these popular social networking sites has been gathered by a Quantcast study that was done in December of 2009.

If you determine that SMM wouldn’t support your company’s objectives or you can’t see an opportunity to engage with your audience, don’t do it. It’s ok, really. Social media marketing might not be right for your company at this time, but may be worth re-evaluating again in the future. On a personal level, social networking can provide great benefits for communicating and sharing information among others like you, and ultimately for networking. Interacting with other experts in your field to discuss ideas, challenges, and solutions can really help elevate your career.

If you have determined that social networking makes sense for your company and you have selected the one(s) that fit, think about how much time you want to dedicate to supporting and keeping your profile/network updated. Look to see how often others post comments and determine if you have enough time to dedicate to one social website, many or none. Keep in mind that having a fan page on Facebook for instance, where comments are not responded to for weeks can do more harm than good. So ensure that appropriate time and resources are allocated to the right social website(s). Posting a few comments and expecting immediate results is just not realistic, it takes continued contributions and patience. Most consumers expect a response within one to two business days, so govern your time accordingly.

Don’t forget to track and monitor your effort. Tracking the traffic from different website sources, number of followers, members, and comments over a period of time can help determine the value of your efforts. Some efforts will be harder to evaluate than others and it needs to be said that you may very well not see a direct connection between more time spent on social networking and incoming sales. However other benefits, as stated earlier, can certainly make the time dedicated to the task well worthwhile.

Checking out what you competitors are using social networking website for, or what they’re missing out on, may also provide some ideas and insights as to ways for you to take advantage. You can locate your competitors by either going to the various social networking site and doing a search for your competitors’ companies or product names, or by visiting your favorite search engine and searching “Facebook”, “Twitter” etc. plus company or product name.

Have fun with social networking and engage with your customers, followers, and supporters or even non-supporters. SMM can be a very powerful medium that will continue to be interwoven into the marketing mix.