Social Media It's Not A Popularity Contest

Real estate agents have bad social media habits. Every real estate agent or agency is the same. They create an account on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or some other social network then start spamming addresses they have for sale. This can't honestly be working, so why do you do it? The most common answer, "I don't know. I saw other people doing it so I thought it must work." Ouch.

Then the results just weren't coming in fast enough for him. Now being a professional social media marketing I know that it takes about months to start seeing a return. I thought I made that clear. Anyways we ended up parting ways and I chalk it up to miscommunication.

Do you remember that Kevin Costner baseball movie "Field of Dreams"? It coined the popular phrase... "Build It and They Will Come" Well, that's the mindset many designers have today when it comes to marketing their interior design business. It's important to realize that is a Hollywood fantasy. However, that fantasy could easily be adjusted to one that is more relevant for business today... "Build your social media presence and they will come... in droves!" Now, it may not be next week, but come they will, provided you get out there and make your presence known.

There are some stats that is worth taking note on the internet. Of all of them, it is pretty obvious Facebook is the "King" and worth investing time into. It could be different for you, since you could be more engaging on Twitter.

The biggest misconception about initiating a social media campaign for a business is that it's quick and easy to do. Starting out, it might seem as simple as establishing a few accounts with the most popular social media agency networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, and then just adding some content. The problem many businesses quickly discover is that content doesn't write itself. And reposting or retweeting content doesn't help much in establishing you and your company as an authoritative voice among your followers. Sure it's helpful to post useful info or retweet links to relevant articles that your followers might be interested in. Just don't underestimate the power of original, company-generated content and how important that is to really making any progress in the social world.

digitalprovider If you are an MLM recruiter for example, provide quality resources for recruits. If you own an ecommerce gardening site, offer gardening tips. Whatever your message, you want to make it consistent across the web.

#4 - Your last website update was 2005. Social marketing comes last so job #1 is to build out your social marketing infrastructure after you know what your business is and who your market is. If you don't have a site that many (exclude yourself) will find valuable, affordable products and services we all need, a formal business plan that displays credibility, then you need to step back and focus on the basics of - why am I in business. Web marketing comes last.

And that is what social media is about in many respects- TRUTH about you- and what you are and do. THAT is transparency. Use that word when talking about the truth. Just being "transparent" - that says a lot in one word about you.

12. MEASURE your impact: Because you set goals and objectives you will know your key metrics. If you are a small business who couldn't hire an expert and didn't really know what to expect or measure, it's okay! Many companies are in the same boat. However, regardless measurement is key! Track your Facebook fans, twitter followers. Track what content they responded positively to.

Now that we've got these covered, what are some other social media troubles you've been having? Have you found a solution? If not, maybe Be Social Worldwide can help!