The Doctor Is In: Rx for Social Media Blues

More and more businesspeople now understand how important social media relationships are to the success of businesses.

And if only the prescription for having a successful social media strategy were as easy as taking a daily pill or even committing to 20 minutes on a treadmill two times a week, all businesspeople would probably already be onboard.

The truth is, and I admit this, that effective social media efforts can be easily hampered by the difficulty of knowing where to start and how to start.

For example, I had an exchange with someone who followed me on Twitter. I gently suggested that the company’s Twitter strategy could be better. The person tweeting (I don’t know who as the Twitter account only has the company name on it) said the company was aware of its lack of an effective Twitter strategy but didn’t know what to do.

Here’s the gap in reasoning that continually surprises me:

If you are online, presumably you know how to use the search function. Why not do a search for information on the topic you want to know about?

Thanks to the prevailing operative that social media is for sharing and not selling, there are almost endless sources of free information on effective social media participation.

So why would a company throw up its hands and participate on social media knowing the company is not doing it well?

Gary Vaynerchuk in his new (brilliant) book THE THANK YOU ECONOMY says:

Put the best people in charge of social media, not the people you don’t know what else to do with. Teams don’t pick the chubby, out-of-shape guy first if they want to win; you shouldn’t pick the second-rate player to do something that requires smarts, empathy, and flexibility.

To adapt this statement for this blog post, your business shouldn’t put second-rate energy into something (social media) that “requires smarts, empathy, and flexibility.”

Here’s a way to get started learning about effective social media participation:

Step #1:

Go to Twitter and put #socialmedia in the search box. You’ll get the most recent tweets on this topic with links to all kinds of articles.

You don’t need to read every article. Use the article headline to evaluate whether an article might be useful information for your company.

Step #2:

Print out the articles that look most promising (let’s say about 10), punch holes in these, and put the articles in a three-ring binder.

Step #3:

Then each day commit to reading just one of these articles. Take note of the information that is relevant to your company.

Step #4:

After you have read all the articles, think about what gaps you have in your own basic knowledge. Then do specific Google searches for information on these gaps. (One example of a gap might be information on how to use lists on Twitter to connect with your target markets.)

Check out the top Google results and again print out the articles that look most promising. Punch holes in these and add to your social media three-ring binder.

Step #5:

Now read one of these articles one day at a time and note the pertinent information.

Step #6:

At this point you should have a clearer understanding of how your company can use social media effectively to engage with your target markets. Now go do it!

And if you want specific how-to training on the basics of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, check out our Miller Mosaic social media 3-part video series.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic LLC.

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