Small Business: Social media marketing, will it work for you?

If you listen to a social media consultant, every business should use social media to promote themselves, and not having a social media marketing strategy is a capital sin. However, truth is social media is not for everybody, and some companies will not benefit enough from a social media plan to make it worthwhile. Take a look at the following factors before unconditionally embracing the latest social media trends and decide if social media marketing is right for your company.

The goal of a social media marketing strategy is to reach your audience, precisely like traditional marketing, but if your audience does not like to use social media platforms trying to reach them this way will prove ineffective most of the time. You can assess how engaged your audience is with the various social media platforms by looking at conversations about your niche topic, the presence of your competitors or searching for related keywords on Twitter. If you find that nobody is talking about your niche on the various social media platforms you are considering, you can do two things: look for another platform or be the first to start a dialogue. The second option may work if your audience uses social media but conversations about your niche have not started yet.

Some products and services lend themselves particularly well to social network marketing, while others simply do not. Take a good look at what you are offering and decide if it is something people like to talk about, share tips and tricks or exchange information. If your industry is not very talkative or prefers to have their conversations in private you may have a hard time getting people to comment on your blogs or lack content that is not self promotional for your Twitter account. For example, a stock trader may find it difficult to find new clients on Facebook, because people will not share that with family and friends. However, Facebook and Twitter are not everything. It can be possible and profitable to establish a social media presence on other platforms more geared towards professional networks, such as LinkedIn or Xing.

Social media marketing is not free, even if most social media platforms are. The cost to create content and interact with your audience can be calculated in terms of money if you hire a social media consultant or agency, or in time and staff resources. Social media marketing ROI is difficult to calculate, because often the benefits of social media are not as clear-cut as "more sales" and fall within the brand sentiment areas. If you are unsure, start with a small investment, for example a business blog or a single Twitter account for customer support, and let your social media strategy grow based on results.

The best way to assess whether your social media marketing strategy is working is by implementing social analytics. You can do everything manually and use google analytics to track hits on your website, but some social media management software such as HootSuite also offer the possibility of tracking your campaigns for less than $10 a month, besides scheduled tweets, Facebook posts and URL shortening. If you are unsure if social media marketing works for your company you can use a 30 days free trial to test out both the tool and your marketing strategy for free. If you decide social media marketing works for your company then you will have results and numbers to prove it, and justify the required resources.