Planning for Social Media Success: 7 Steps Small Businesses Need to Take

Social networks including the Big 3 (Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook) have been around for a decade or more but many professionals continue to remain in the dark about their business value. Over the past few years, professionals who once scoffed at the likes of Twitter have finally come around to recognize that such tools are important.

But how, exactly?

A Recent History of Social Networks: 10 Years in 10 Seconds

Back in the day, and perhaps to some extent even today, many businesses set themselves up with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, and waited for something wonderful to happen. If they wanted to be hip with the latest craze they expanded their visibility to include Instagram (now a Facebook extension) or Pinterest.

But after they set everything up and sent out a few tweets, business leaders weren't sure what to do next. They didn't know what social networks were intended to accomplish.

In some ways, the riddle was understandable. Social networks represent such game-changing disruptors to how businesses traditionally operate that the broader field of business strategy had to evolve significantly to adapt to these unique, new communications channels. That takes time, even years, in some cases.

Adoption has also been stymied, often in smaller businesses, by an unfortunate divide between marketing and executive leadership. If social networking is perceived as a "marketing thing", the disconnect that remains between business strategy--the bailiwick of executive leadership--and a social media strategy that evolves from the specific goals of that strategy, is bound to cause ongoing struggles.

Social Media: Who Gets It and Who May Not

Larger businesses have, for the most part, successfully transitioned. The University of Massachusetts Center for Marketing Research annually publishes research identifying the use of social networks among Fortune 500 Companies. Among the findings in the Center's 2016 report: 97% of the companies on the list use LinkedIn. That's a good sign.

But many small and mid-sized businesses still struggle. One way to align social networking strategy with business strategy is to invest in professional-level marketing and business development leadership. Such a leader will have the skills to dialogue with executives to better understand (and possibly even shape) business goals, and apply strategic planning, project management and social networking expertise to develop social platforms that facilitate achievement of those goals. Finally, such a marketing leader reports to executive leadership the measurable, relevant outcomes of the social program.

Below are seven steps every small to mid-sized business should take to align its social media strategy with the company's larger business strategy.

1. Identify stakeholders vital to business success. What relationships do you need to build with each stakeholder group? A business' social media strategy begins with its corporate strategy. Executive leadership should have a strong grasp of which stakeholders are vital to ongoing organizational success, such as clients, prospects, industry partners, and other individuals and institutions that impact the business' welfare. Once you identify each group, determine what a successful relationship will look like for each. As examples, you want to make sure your clients remain satisfied with your level of service and continue to feel important to your success. You'll also want to reinforce the value of your company on an ongoing basis to prospects.
2. Determine which social networks are important to your stakeholders and connect with them there. It always drives me crazy when people say: "You have to be on Twitter" or "You have to be on Facebook". The reality is you don't have to be on any social network! Once you identify your stakeholder groups as well as the relationship goals for each, determine the social networks they use. Most businesses find LinkedIn to be the most valuable since it focuses on business professionals. But don't underestimate the market research potential of surveys to learn how and where your stakeholders collect information vital to their own business success. Other, unexpected social networks may emerge as important go-to arenas. What this means is that there are no sacred cows in the world of social media. If no one vital to your business interests uses Twitter, then don't use it. Really, it's not a cardinal sin no matter how many people love Twitter. Social networks serve business interests. If a particular network doesn't do that, don't waste your time.
3. Give before you receive. Recognize the rule of reciprocity. Now that you have connected with your stakeholders on their preferred social networks, it is time to be as helpful as possible to help them recognize the value of the social relationship. Provide clients and prospects with professional guidance in a Linkedin group. Share a tweet about an event hosted by an industry partner to expand the number of people who learn about the event, providing them with a chance to participate. Link to an article that shares news relevant to your clients' industry. Don't ignore your own valuable events, products and services. But a good rule of thumb is that you should promote your business on social networks no more than 33% of the time. Helping your stakeholders, regardless of whether the resources you provide are yours or someone's else's, inevitably leads to the rule of reciprocity. When you help others, they will be inclined to want to help you (which could include clients making referrals or prospects having proof of your value during a bidding process for services!). Helpfulness is, by and large, one of the golden rules of social networking.
4. Integrate content marketing and business development into social marketing. Here's some good news disguised as challenging news. Social media marketing does not occur in a bubble but, instead, relies on integration with other aspects of your marketing program. Linking to and sharing examples of your company's expertise--such as case studies, blog posts, videos or articles on your website--positions your company to help solve prospects' and other stakeholders' problems. The challenge is developing the content. Who will write that article or blog post? Who will produce a video? These products take time to develop but content marketing offers business development opportunities. The content you develop (and share on social networks) won't be valuable to everyone, but even if only a few prospects recognize the opportunity your expertise provides, they may reach out, providing a chance to learn about their business needs and initiate a client relationship. That's good news.
5. Social networking is social advertising. If there is an ongoing trend in social networking, it is the sharp move toward a paid model. Businesses should, for example, disregard seeking Facebook page "likes" as a key metric since very few free (or "organic") posts actually end up in the news feed of its followers. Instead, businesses should consider initiating ad campaigns more likely to get in front of their audiences using Facebook's Power Editor and Ads Manager. Company page followers on LinkedIn will still receive all a company's posts but the network's Campaign Manager provides opportunities to expand a company's reach more than ever before. Twitter Ads are another option. Effective social advertising requires a learning curve and a financial investment, but social networks are holding up their end of the bargain by building strong audience targeting capabilities based on partnerships with data brokers, allowing you to reach the kind of professional your business needs to reach.
6. Take conversations offline. This gets back to Step 4, which emphasize that social networking doesn't exist in isolation. Social networking is a relationship-building vehicle which can ultimately lead to face-to-face encounters that some still consider essential to building trust. A prospect who appreciates helpful resources you share on LinkedIn may want to schedule a meeting to discuss a business challenge. If your business is sharing photos of a presentation on some cutting-edge topic on Facebook (or maybe on Instagram!), a client may want to introduce a friend who missed the event but who needs to know more about that topic.
7. Measure results and report back to executive leadership. Because social media marketing is a "business thing" not a "marketing thing", it is important to measure the success of your social media efforts. An identification of all metrics does not fall within the scope of this article. But examining new followers you receive on a particular network is one option. During my tenure at my last firm, our LinkedIn company page following jumped more than 300%! The number of people who download a white paper is another metric. Finally, of course, you want to track how many social referrals (i.e. leads from social networks) led to new business. Code can be embedded on your site to help you track (typically via Google Analytics) how many people arrived on a website landing page from a social network.

In many ways, especially for larger businesses and some small businesses that are hitting it out of the park, social media marketing has been successfully integrated into their broader marketing programs. But many businesses still struggle due to a lack of sufficient audience identification capabilities, a failure to develop a solid (and well-optimized) content marketing program or an inability to adopt metrics reporting. Effective social marketing is challenging but so are most other aspects of business. That doesn't mean it's not important. Far from it. With the proper professional guidance and skill sets, social media programming has the potential to become a formidable resource for the marketing and business development efforts of any business.