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A Top Down Social Media Marketing RoadMap

Sure, social media can be a great, low-cost marketing tactic for growing your business but how do you get it done — especially on a consistent, daily basis amidst all the other activities pulling at your time and attention?

The key is answering why? before what? and how?  Create a top-down Social Media marketing roadmap before you start a single tweet.  You will at least be driving forward, rather than feeling stuck at the side of the road.

What are your goals?  How will you measure your progress to see if you are getting there?  You can then narrow down your social media tactics to those best few that will truly help your business.

Here is my quick social media marketing roadmap for helping you prioritize your tactics regarding social media.  Choose 1-3 of the following goals (metrics for measurement are in italics).  Then select or refine appropriate social media tactics listed under each goal:

Get found/ raise awareness (visitors to website or store)

• Create an expert blog on your niche area of expertise
• Host how-to and other educational videos on YouTube
• Become an “expert” on focused LinkedIn discussion groups

Protect your reputation / Monitor the market and competition (timeliness of response)

• Google Alerts on your company name, your competitors, your key clients
• Follow through Twitter thought leaders, influencers, key clients, competitors
• RSS Feeds of key industry blogs

Market research – what do customers want? (Data for key decisions on projects and product/service development)

• LinkedIn group questions and discussions
• Facebook fan page polls
• What the Trend and The Top 100

Build a prospect list (Sign-ups for e-newsletter)

• Webinars on hot topics
• White paper, Report, Article of Interest as Incentive to sign-up for email list

Develop new business partnerships with key referral sources or influencers (prospects and clients from these sources)

• Follow referrals and influencers on Twitter
• Subscribe to blogs, fan pages of referrals and influencers
• Join LinkedIn groups of Referrals and Influencers

Push out promotions, events, or special offers  (Event attendance, promotion/offer redemption)

• Special offers for Facebook fans
• Event postings on LinkedIn, Facebook
• Regular Tweets to build up limited time offer or event

Improve customer service (Customer satisfaction scores)

• Create a wiki for your FAQ or Customer Service knowledge
• Google Alerts to monitor comments and complaints and respond immediately
• Twitter account for service, tips and response

In three months, look at your metric and see if you have made true progress.  Adjust or charge ahead as needed.

Jeanne Rossomme – President, RoadMap Marketing Jeanne uses her 20 years of marketing know-how to help small business owners reach their goals. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she held a variety of marketing positions with DuPont and General Electric. Jeanne regularly hosts online webinars and workshops in both English and Spanish. www.roadmapmarketing.com | @roadmapmarketin | More from Jeanne