Social Media Marketing Goals for the Writer
Whether you are building a business or a house, the same foundation needs to be built – a set of measurable goals. Without goals, you will never reach your destination.
Business goals are essential for planning resources and forecasting outcomes. This is true no matter what type of marketing you plan to implement and is definitely the case with social media.
For many, interfacing on twitter and facebook may be deemed a horrendous waste of time. Trust me – I was one of the naysayers. But, if you know how to use them, the social medias command a tremendous amount of marketing power.
Social Media is a ripe opportunity and a affordable venue that shouldn’t deter anyone from getting started – especially writers and authors. Writers simply need to look at their marketing and promotion goals as they would a business then apply the best tactics needed to attain that goal. To do this, writers need to understand audience preferences and behaviors and lead them to the right decision.
Social Groups
Many social media users focus on the five main social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, YouTube and LinkedIn, without contemplating how each of the medias fit into their social media goals. While the main five groups incur a massive amount of traffic, your goal is to implement a program that targets where your audience is participating in.
The Target Audience
Writers tend to focus on promoting themselves on writers and author group arenas. While these groups are great for discussing the craft of writing, they are far from your target consumer audience. Writers do read but they spend a lot of time marketing and promoting themselves – which leaves less time to read.
Research before you implement a listening program to discover what social networks, blogging communities or media sharing sites are right for you.
The Approach
The classic “Leap before you Look” approach to social media marketing is a common approach for many businesses. Jeremiah Owyang’s post on “Process: A Pragmatic Approach to Social Business” shows that an effective approach is to invest time and “approach social business like any other business program: with a plan.”
Owyang recommends you start “gaining intelligence, by first getting educated about how business has changed.” The steps for social media success he describes include education, research, strategy, planning, implementation, management, measurement, and renewal. While the process isn’t new, it is a program that managers and businesses have implemented successfully for years.
The Checklist
You need a checklist to manage your social media marketing strategies. As a writer, you should find this concept very familiar. Developing a routine is also necessary. Both help you make smarter decisions on how to implement social media marketing while organizing and managing your time.
Automation
Being able to balance your marketing, promotion and writing tasks takes a lot of planning. If you implement automation, it removes redundancy and enables you to get back to what you truly desire – write. Automation services allows your posts or articles to automatically appear on all your social media outlets from one convenient source. You can also schedule posts, freeing up time for other tasks.
Confused?
As an advertising and marketing nerd, don’t let my technical mumbo-jumbo send you screaming into the night. The process of promoting and marketing yourself is more time-consuming than it is difficult. Our UG First Steps guides will help you effectively utilize and organize your time and energies, so you can get back to writing that best seller!
If you have any questions, and I am sure you do, regarding the Social Media Marketing scene – feel free to drop us a line – we want to hear from you.
