Social Media: Only Bite What You Can Chew

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by Aryeh Powers
One of the jobs of any modern Internet marketer is to create and/ or to maintain a social media presence for the product or service that they represent. In so doing, the marketing manager or coordinator needs to interact with customers and fans of the product or service and to maintain a current company presence across different social platforms in an effort to meet the expectations and attention of their fan base and to reach potential customers who may discover your brand as a result of your brands social exposure.
Two important questions and that I think Internet marketers need to address, with regard to social media, include the following:

    • How much time can you dedicate to building, monitoring and maintaining your social media profile’s? This becomes ever so important for brands who can expect a heavy amount of feedback and engagement from their clients. Whereas it might be somewhat intuitive to want to create and run as many social media profiles as possible, I recommend otherwise. I recommend for those Internet marketers who are responsible for handling the social media aspect of their clients or brands to first start of small and to start their social media campaign by tackling 3-5 social media platforms. Once you have set up and have come up with an effective social media campaign (the word effective implies positive customer feedback and engagement) that you can manage, time wise – for you and for your team – only then should you begin to explore more obscure and niched social media platforms to invest your time in.
    • Are the social media platforms that you’re considering notorious for customers who leave bad reviews? When I think of popular websites that really draw tons of both Internet and foot traffic to businesses, the one website that sticks out is Yelp. As you have probably heard or read, Yelp has been sewed numerous times by businesses who have had, what they see, as a large number of complaints about bad service or some other component of the respective business. Needless to say, complaints on social media sites like Yelp negatively affect a brands image and customer loyalty. That being said, if you are going to have a Yelp account, then please make sure that you are getting enough good reviews so that you will not have to worry about the bad apples. You can do this by offering a discount or promotion at your business to those who offer encouraging remarks and recommendations and by having a good relationship with a personal rep at Yelp itself. If you have not already set up a Yelp account and do not anticipate having the time or desire to follow up with your Yelp reviews, then by all accounts you probably should not set up an account.

 

My last piece of advice to all of you who are looking to embark on your social media journey is that you find and make use of popular platforms that you, as the profile manager, have full control over. This is what I mean by full control: sites which require visitors to have their comments approved before those comments go public, then you have full control over that social platform. A classic example of this would be a Linkedin company page. Not only do you have full control over your social profile, but will most likely rank high on search results, due to the relevance of Linkedin today.

In short consider spending more time on developing platforms that you can easily manage, and those which will bring you visitors with the least amount of effort. In the event that you are getting positive feedback from your customers, then considering slowly engaging your customers on new platforms which you feel you have the time and capability to manage. Don’t try to tackle the social sandwich in one bite; take it slow and enjoy the process.

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