Understand your audience and define mediums they use.
You have defined your social media goals – now how to execute them . . .
The next step is understanding your audience and figuring out where they get their information. Meetings Northwest, LLC being a small business is very diversified, we work with non-profit groups with volunteer boards to grow their member base, develop their business plans, design their annual meetings and conferences, etc. and on the flipside, we design private and corporate events for individuals and groups. So our audience varies. Who do we focus on to start? Who uses social media most? One group of clients is more likely to use LinkedIn, while the other set of clients looks to Facebook and Pinterest for inspiration. I could go into more detail of why blah blah blah, but if you look at your base – I think you will probably be able to pinpoint your starting points fairly easily because it is probably the same social media you use. Once you grow and need to expand your plan you can decide whether or not you want to add a media like YouTube – or in our case, if we wanted to create a piece explaining the process of keeping event attendees connected post-event – we could some day produce a YouTube video or an info piece for LinkedIn. But we are starting simple and by simple, I mean we need to pick the basics and do them well. Our clients may not be interested in a blog until we rope them in with our fascinating bits on LinkedIn and Twitter or Facebook and Pinterest, all the while linking them back to our blog on our website.
Our goal: Write a blog about our industry. Tweet and post on LinkedIn about current events and industry information. Every two weeks, each employee will write a blog about something relevant to our market. Tweet and post on LinkedIn at least twice a week, linking blog on our website as often as possible, sometimes just posting an interesting article we come across or posting about an upcoming event or event update. As for our private client base, we will post at least once a day on Facebook and continually add things to our boards in Pinterest.
Stay tuned: If you are anything like me, it isn’t social media that is stumping you; it is “What on earth do I write?” My next blog will inspire you on where to find information and ideas on what to post.
Kasey B. Wright
About the author:
Kasey B. Wright is a small town, small business kind of girl with nature in her heart. She grew-up working long hours at her parents general store in amazing Joseph, Oregon – Google it, oh wait, here’s a link – visit! Really- Arts, Camping, Resort on Wallowa Lake, Mountains, 52 high lakes, Gorgeous! Enough with the free advertisement, but truly it is amazing – Google it! Now days, if not twiddling away on her iMac, painting, or mentally re-designing pretty much everything, she is outside with her family enjoying all of the adventures that lay beyond her front door (which in Missoula are abundant and basically start within a five-minute radius of her house). Her family, a husband of whom she met as a freshman in college (architect – I know two designers and yes, nothing ever gets done), our dog (neurotic first child wire-haired pointing griffon), cat (shelter cat – maybe the most adjusted member of our family), and toddler twins (girl+boy) in chronological order, keep the adventure alive! Oh yah, fish too (rarely claimed).
