Social Media Training – Before You Sign Up

Social media training abounds no matter where you live. Everyone is getting on this marketing bandwagon including social media coaches, business coaches, web designers, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts and advertising agencies. (My apologies if I left anyone out.)

So let me ask you a simple question: Why are you investing your hard earn profits on this marketing strategy? (Business Coaching Tip: Any dollars you invest outside of accepted direct costs and indirect costs are profits.)

Are you doing it because you heard all the buzz about it?

Are you doing it because you believe you need to stay ahead of your competitors?

Are you doing it because you realize you must become more proactive in your marketing initiatives?

These questions all suggest that your first step before you sign up is to return to your strategic business action plan and specifically to your marketing research. When you step back to your marketing plan, you will be able to answer these questions:

Who is my target market?

Why would they buy products or services that I offer?

What market changes are happening here locally, regionally, nationally and globally?

Next is to look at your current marketing goals specific to your website. Social media is about attracting attention using Internet websites and then eventually sending those potential customers (a.k.a. prospects) back to your website. This leads to these three questions:

What are the goals for your website?

Are there some other actions to be taken before engaging in social media?

How will you measure the results of your actions?

The final consideration before signing up is to return to your marketing plan and review your executive marketing summary that evolved from your core positioning statement. For if you do not have a compelling message, how will you attract someone’s attention in 140 characters or less? What may happen is you will sound like everyone else, hawking your products and services instead of educating and providing value.

During the last 10 years, I have observed a lot of marketing confusion for many small business owners, single office/home office (SOHO), entrepreneurs, C Suite executives and Independent sales professionals such as realtors, financial advisors, insurance agents and medical practitioners. Consequently, these folks fail to realize the desired results given the enormous amount of resources they expended. As my good friend Doug Brown has so often said “People confuse motion with progress and activity with results.” Business Coaching Tip: An activity is not directed to any predetermined desired result versus an action that is clearly connected to a specific written goal.

If you are considered social media training, good for you! Just make sure you have done your homework so your resources of profits, time and energy yield sustainable results.