Do You Have What It Takes to Make It as an Entrepreneur?

Are you suited to be an entrepreneur? Too often, people start businesses not aware they do not have the right entrepreneurial skill-set—they may be too complacent, laid-back, or cautious to take up on the multifaceted role of entrepreneur—which can lead to the failure of their ventures.

Being aware of your entrepreneurial style before launching a startup can help you determine if you’re suited for entrepreneurship.

1. You Are an Innovator

Do you love experimenting with new ideas? If yes, then you are probably a creative soul who loves original ideas. This type of entrepreneur has a knack for blue-sky thinking which often results in creating or inventing revolutionary products. Steve Jobs is one example of an entrepreneur who changed the face of computing with his out-of-the-box approach to thinking.

2. You Are a Risk-Taker

This type of entrepreneur is not afraid to make bold decisions in their business. They take risks as a way to challenge their own methodologies or strategies and to grow as an individual. With their courageous mindset, they are able to successfully grow their businesses and stay ahead in the game. If you have the ability to face challenges, this may describe you.

3. You Are a Wanna-Be Entrepreneur

You desperately want to be a successful entrepreneur but you seriously lack the talent and abilities to become one. You live in a fantasy world of one day having your own business, but you don’t do anything to get started. You are happy reading success stories about entrepreneurs or watching shows about successful business people and visualizing yourself in the same role. If you identify with this type of entrepreneur, then it’s time to wake up.

4. You Are a Slow Starter

You are serious about starting a business, but you want to be absolutely ready before you take the plunge. It’s important to you that everything is in order, and you want to make sure that the process goes as planned. Much of your time is spent in research and planning, and you’re constantly seeking validation from the people around you. Your constant search for information and second opinions keep delaying from getting started, and in the end, you never launch your dream business.

5. You Are a Day Dreamer

Daydreamers are the kind of entrepreneurs who are only seduced by the glamor of entrepreneurship. They don’t want to be bothered with the laborious parts of launching a startup and only want to dwell on what it feels like to be their own boss. They have mental images of fancy offices and luxurious private jets. But they do not do any real work to convert their dreams into a living reality.

6. You Are an Opportunity Seeker

These entrepreneurs are always searching for new opportunities for starting businesses. They do not build castles in the air, but they instead look for opportunities to build their business. They will also keep in touch with influential people in their industry to get help, even if it comes in the form of financial help or volunteering.

7. You Are Resilient

This hardy type of entrepreneur belongs to the group of strong-willed people who never give up, no matter how difficult the circumstances are. Even if finances are a problem, they never lose sight of their vision and keep progressing towards their goals. Through their determination and resilience, they manage to find solutions.

8. You Are Dependent on Others

There are entrepreneurs who are dependent on others to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality. They are not willing to launch their businesses until they can find the right partners to work with. Therefore, they oftentimes keep delaying their ventures and sometimes end up giving up in the end.

Source : http://bit.ly/2d9LXrs

3 Keys to Create Engaging Content for More Customers and Sales

One of the most exciting fields for startups right now is content marketing. This engaging way to spread the word about your business has continued to grow as different forms of content gain popularity. Though it all started with the typical blog, companies are now using various forms of content marketing like podcasts to drive more traffic.

This form of marketing is hard to master and with the dozens of verticals involved, it’s rare to come across a valid informational source. That is why Jason Quey started the Content Promotion Summit, an online event that is bringing together over 60 of the world’s best content marketers.

This free event that started July 25, was aimed at teaching the ins and outs of blogging, podcasts, public relations and more. If you’re looking to start with the basics, below are three keys to creating engaging content to get more customers:

1. Develop a strategy.

Every house needs a foundation. The same goes for your content marketing. Entrepreneurs creating a blog need to lay out a strategy that focuses on their goals.

As an example, Drift, a messaging app that helps you grow your business, utilizes their blog to create a voice around sales, marketing and customer acquisition. In under eight months, their blog has grown to over 30,000 monthly visitors without a budget, making their company a thought leader in messaging apps.

To develop your strategy, I suggest reading the Grow and Convert blog where Benji Hyam details the Google Suggested Search hack. This basically involves long tail search terms focused on how-to questions, comparisons, and questions.

2. Gain credibility.

You have the right foundation for your content strategy. Now you will want to know how to create the content to execute on that strategy.

There are different ways to establish credibility and some ways are better than others. Getting press attention, interviewing influencers in your industry, blogging on other company blogs and answering questions online are all ways to gain credibility.

As an example, at my startup Sourcify where we help entrepreneurs find the right manufacturer in minutes, we like answering specific questions on Quora that address the pain point we are solving. This not only gets us traffic but also boosts credibility as people upvote our answers.

3. Utilize social media.

Social media is one of the best ways to share your content. With that said, social media is all about engagement and far too many companies overlook this fact. Companies today post on social like they’re talking to a brick wall.

Hillel Fuld, one of the world’s top tech bloggers and co-founder ofZCast recently told me a story of when Gary Vaynerchuck explained the return on investment of social media. He described social media as being your mom. Mothers are always there to compliment their children and instill confidence. Social media is there to do the same for your customers.

Though content marketing may not show immediate results or returns, it is a must in today’s world of online marketing. By growing your blog or starting a podcast, you’ll see long term growth and gains that you wouldn’t have imagined possible. You could be invited to speak at major events or write for major publications, but if you don’t start now, who knows where your content could lead you.

 Source : http://entm.ag/2bC8CqZ

4 Ways to Turn Marketing Ideas Into Engaged Customers

Having engaged customers is, of course, the holy grail for marketers. Some may argue that increasing sales would be the ultimate goal but I would argue back that the most engaged customers are the happier they are and in turn the more revenue will be generated.

A recent global survey of 255 executives across a range of industries and functions from both the brand agency sides of the aisle conducted by Forbes Insights and sponsored by Oracle Marketing Cloud, identified four (4) keys to success in translating marketing visions into more engaged customers via a better relationship between brands and agencies.

1. Successfully mine all of the today’s rich sources of data. 

There is, of course, no shortage of data available. In this context, however, attribution is essential for understanding the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and knowing which investments will deliver the best results. 

Lisa Donohue, CEO of Starcom USA says they tag all the digital media used in each campaign, whether the channel is the Internet, mobile devices or television. “This helps us understand who is clicking on the ads and what do they as a result. Ultimately, we can then tell if they have made a purchase, which puts us in a better position to track the efficacy of the strategy that we implemented.” 

However, Kevin Koh CEO of DDB Group Korea cautions marketing organizations to not lose sight of the art and science of the profession. For example, he sees great value in information that can help convince clients of the efficacy of a new campaign. But while important, the wider use of data analysis shouldn’t be allowed to quash creativity. 

2. Capitalize on the latest technologies for understanding customers and managing marketing programs. 

Survey results revealed that marketing executives express a widespread understand- ing that the latest digital technologies are powering marketing efforts for agencies and marketing organizations alike. 

Survey results also showed that brands and agencies are relying on a range of technologies to further their customer- engagement efforts. Among the most widely deployed applications are social networking tools, web analytics, digital advertising platforms, marketing automation systems and multichannel campaign management programs. 

3. Enhance professional and personal skills.

 New demands mean agencies and brands require new skill sets to be successful. This includes finding people with a broad understanding of businesses, not just the marketing function. “As corporations rethink the role of marketing, we’re seeing deeper integration not only between marketers and their agencies but between marketers and peers in the operations, technology, product and finance departments,” says Patrick Adams, Head of Consumer Marketing, North America. “What makes a stellar head of marketing today is someone who not only has the marketing skill-set but who can also flex across technology and product/merchandising. That skill-set makes for a great marketing leader and will ensure success in the future.” 

4. Balance local and global imperatives. 

Mindful that brands have a global reach, marketing executives must pay attention to regional differences across various international markets. Top local considerations, according to the survey, are what existing technology foundations are prevalent in a target country and the cultural characteristics that must be addressed. 

Executives say brands can’t effectively connect with local customers without a strong regional presence in important markets. Adams says PayPal relies on marketing teams dedicated to overseeing consumer experience in local markets and those teams interact frequently to discuss performance results, new product launches, and other initiatives. 

Source: http://bit.ly/26I4EF9

Download the free app now.. Iphone and Android.

4 Benefits of Social Media Beyond Marketing

The most recent Pew Research study of social media usage shows that 65 percent of adults now use social media sites—up from only 7 percent just ten years ago! And, social media isn’t just for digital natives these days. Pew’s research shows that while those ages 18-29 are still the most prolific users (at 90 percent), those 65 and older are jumping on board as well—in 2015, 35 percent of those 65+ reported that they use social media sites, compared to only 2 percent in 2005.

This is all good news for marketers, of course, and if you spend any time at all on social media sites you can readily see that companies, large and small, are using the sites to market their wares to both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets.

But social media has applications that extend beyond marketing.

Recruitment

LinkedIn is probably the social media channel most thought of as a recruitment tool. The site, in fact, started out as a means for job seekers to connect with potential employers and recruiters. Today, employers both post job openings and also “troll” profiles looking for “passive” candidates that might meet their needs. Passive candidates are those who are not actively looking for a job. Recruiters have also extended their reach beyond LinkedIn to use other social media sites—like Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest—to find job candidates.

Customer Service

If you’ve ever posted a somewhat negative comment or complaint about a company online and received an almost immediate follow-up response from a representative from the company, you’ve experienced how social media can be used as a customer service tool. Savvy companies set up processes that allow them to monitor and curate online comments so that they can quickly intervene and address any issues consumers may have.

Employee Communication and Collaboration

Many social media sites offer the opportunity to create closed, or proprietary, groups that only pre-selected members can join. LinkedIn and Facebook are two examples of this. This can provide big benefits for organizations that want to provide employees who may be geographically dispersed with an opportunity to engage and connect. Setting up such groups can also be an important part of a crisis communication plan—providing an opportunity to get messages out to employees, and other key audiences, in the event of an emergency.

Market Research

There’s a lot of data to be found through social media and a lot of insights to be gleaned about consumers’ interests and preferences. While companies need to be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from what is qualitative information, these insights can serve as the basis for further quantitative research and can also provide early indications of key trends that may be impacting your markets.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TqJvdS

5 Online Marketing Strategies That Work on Any Budget

The following marketing strategies can theoretically work on any budget--as long as you're willing to put in the time.

When you're trying to get a startup off the ground or keep your small business running, every dollar counts. You're working with a limited pool of revenue, a restricted number of resources, and pressing expenses that demand your immediate attention--so it's no wonder why marketing often gets neglected.

Unfortunately, marketing is a necessary expenditure if you want your business to grow. Otherwise, you might remain strapped with those limited revenue streams indefinitely, and all your scrimping and saving will turn into a self-perpetuating cycle. Is it impossible to break out without spending an exorbitant amount of money?

Of course not. This is the digital age. The following marketing strategies can theoretically work on any budget--as long as you're willing to put in the time:

1. Content Marketing. Content marketing can refer to a number of different interrelated tactics, but they all boil down to one idea: earning more traffic for your site by producing high-profile, valuable pieces of content. For example, you might publish a whitepaper or eBook that attracts people to learn more about your brand, or distribute an infographic that leads users back to your site. If you have a computer, a website, and an Internet connection, you have practically everything you need to get started with the basics of content marketing. Write about what you know--write something original, with specific and detailed information, that's valuable for your target audience. Do this regularly, at least a few times per week, and syndicate your material to increase the visibility of your work. In time, you'll build an audience and you'll be able to invest in better content (posting more frequently, posting new mediums, etc.). Content marketing offers a ridiculously high ROI over the long term, but you can get started for almost nothing.

2. Social Media Marketing. Don't be fooled into thinking that social media marketing is quick or easy. It's not a get rich quick scheme, nor does anything on it happen automatically. There are several fundamentals you have to pay attention to, and even maintaining best practices, it's easy to lose traction or visibility. Still, it costs nothing to establish your brand on most major social media platforms, and you can distribute all your content for free. If you engage with individuals, spark conversations, and syndicate truly valuable content, you'll naturally attract more followers, who can spread the word about your brand and convert to paying customers given the right opportunity. In combination with a solid content marketing campaign, this is even more effective.

3. SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) has developed an almost mystical reputation; professional SEO experts are seen as practitioners of magic, who can make a site rise to the top of Google search results by executing their secret tactics. The reality is much less fanciful. SEO is actually pretty simple if you break it down to its bare components. You'll have to dig into code for onsite optimization, but it's nothing a few online tutorials can't walk you through. Beyond that, content marketing and social media marketing can help you build your domain authority (in coordination with a link building campaign), and they're both nearly free as well. Granted, you won't be able to compete on a national level without the help of an agency or an in-house expert, but you can get started with the basics after a few hours of independent research.

4. Email Marketing. It's free to create a basic MailChimp account, and not very expensive if you want to buy some extra credits. You can also start building a list based on your current or prospective customer base (and I don't recommend buying one). From there, one email a week, backed with good content and special deals, can help you earn more traffic and conversions, and not just a few--email marketing can net you an ROI of 4,300 percent or more. It takes time and effort--but not much money upfront.

5. Influencer Marketing. What if you could get someone else to market your company for you, for free? Sounds sweet, right? The truth is, you can accomplish this with a little bit of research and a decent value proposition. Influencer marketing is the process of identifying high-authority individuals in a given industry (for example, a thought leader in your industry with a massive social following), and getting them to meaningfully engage with your brand. That could mean sharing your content, hosting guest posts, or even engaging in an interview with you. How can you accomplish this without bribery? Simple: you ask. Make it worth their while, stay respectful of their time, and be genuine--eventually, you'll have no problem recruiting influencers to your cause.

These aren't the only marketing strategies that can be executed for next to nothing, so don't limit yourself. Do your research, diversify your strategies, and keep progressing toward your ultimate goals. The beauty of these strategies is that they can work on a passable level with a minimum investment, but if you invest more money, the payoffs start increasing proportionally. You can start off with almost no investment, and by the time you start earning enough revenue to double down on these strategies, you'll be experienced enough to know how to maximize your ROI.

But in order to get to this point, you have to get started--and the sooner the better. Stop using a limited budget as an excuse not to market your business, and start building the momentum you need to succeed.

 Source : http://bit.ly/1KZ8Ok8

From Likes to Leads: Five Steps to Social Lead Generation

Does the name ‘John Wanamaker’ ring a bell?

Probably not, but around the turn of the last century, he was a brilliant marketer and founder of a department store chain. He pioneered merchandising, was the first to add price tags to items, and introduced the money-back guarantee on purchases.

But perhaps more than anything, old Johnny W. is best known for his humorous take on his investments in marketing. You know the quote: Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

Which Half is Social?

Fast-forward to today, and the truth is that many social marketers likely ponder similar issues. Over 150 years later, marketers and communicators are still wrestling with what we today call ‘attribution’.

On one hand, it feels great to measure success based on the number of fans, followers and subscribers a brand has. After all, views, likes, shares, and tweets are clear indications that your audience appreciates what you have to share. There’s definite value in creating brand awareness and affinity.

But on the other hand, this isn’t 2010 anymore. CMOs are under increasing pressure to show demonstrable ROI (or attribution). Every marketer must now correlate social marketing with the bottom line. Are those Facebook likes translating into web form completes? Are Twitter campaigns reducing acquisition costs of search engine marketing? What happens after somebody shares your blog posts on LinkedIn?

Just ask any sales exec and they’ll be quick to tell you what they want from social. Quality leads.

Driving Bottom Line Value from Social

Generating leads from social marketing is the new measure of effectiveness, but the majority of organizations fall short. While 83% of marketers use content to generate leads, a mere 21% are able to correlate ROI against the goal.   

So what’s a marketer to do? Let’s check out five social tactics that can help you delight your sales team and measure the value of your investments.  

1. Listen for the Right Signals

The key to being a great conversationalist is to be a great listener, right? Social marketing is no different.

Of course you want to deliver great content, but social listening is a short path to lead generation. Not only does it enable you to discover what topics are generating interest and what customers are saying about your brand, it equips you to hone in on key ‘buy words’ that indicate an active interest in finding solutions pertinent to your products and services. You’ll need to adjust your listening filters based on your specific situation, but imagine the value of detecting associated terms like ROI, RFP, considering, opinions, evaluation, buying, review, etc.

2. Pinpoint Messages Based on Insights

Next, leverage the insights you’ve gained through social listening to join the conversation. Make that research actionable. Monitor where conversations are happening, and align content to topics generating the most interest.

For the best results, apply social insights to drive broader marketing decisions. One quick win opportunity is to target specific customers with 1-to-1 social advertising on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Be sure each call to action enables you to track the prospect to the next phase—this is not the time for fleeting marketing messages.

3. Connect Social IDs to CRM Records

Associating social identities to CRM records enables you to continue the conversation on other channels like email. The best approaches use every customer interaction—regardless of channel or stage in the customer lifecycle—as an opportunity to connect the dots. Imagine a day where your marketing can be “channel-agnostic” and technology helps to determine the best way to reach a prospect at a particular time. That day starts now with identity consolidation.

Customers are accustomed to providing an email address or phone number as a unique identifier. Are you requesting social handles as a standard part of every interaction you have with them? How about your peers in support? Or better yet, even earlier—do your online purchase forms include fields for social identifiers? Your product registration process? Webinar registration forms? Surveys? 

Be sure to identify all critical touch points throughout your customers’ journeys. It will likely reveal new opportunities to connect social identities to data already stored in your CRM platform. 

4. Carefully Manage Sales Expectations

It’s not uncommon for social leads to meet some initial resistance from the sales team. Because the strategy is unfamiliar, there’s a tendency to perceive the source as less valuable than more traditional types of leads.

That’s a dangerous assumption. Consider that only 27% of all leads—regardless of how they were generated—ever receive any type of follow-up from sales (and most of those don’t receive any within the first 48 hours). Talk about a negative impact on ROI!

Marketing will have a hard time changing that culture: It has to come from sales leadership. As it relates to social leads, let sales leadership know what they can expect from your team in terms of volume and quality, and gain agreement on SLAs for follow-up.

It’s also a good idea to provide some coaching on how to best follow-up on social leads. They should be handled differently than other qualified leads. The chances are that you’ve carefully curated the interest over time, and a heavy-handed response from sales can quickly unravel what had been a ‘soft sell’ up to that point. 

5. Measure the Results

Last but certainly not least, carefully track the results of your social efforts. Avoid the temptation to solely use marketing metrics. Instead, speak salespeople’s language—analyze and share results based on sales-centric measures like number and value of leads, opportunities and closes. 

For added validity, be sure you’re able to answer the proverbial ‘as compared to what?’ question in reports. With social lead generation being new, it’s easy to classify it as a new sales tool with no peers (and thus no comparison). But the budgets, resources and marketing efforts could be spent doing something else.

And of course, be honest with your reporting, even if you don’t see immediate efficacy. Driving leads through social can take time, but few doubt that building 1-to-1 social relationships will continue to become ever-more critical.

Source : http://sforce.co/1Q3DNYG

The 5 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make

The term “mistakes” has a negative connotation: You've made a decision or implemented something that didn’t go as planned; now you have to deal with the repercussions.

Yet most mistakes, even ones that in the moment seem massive, end up being only temporary setbacks. In fact, they usually end up as positive assets because they teach valuable lessons about how to improve your business or approach.

Unfortunately, not all mistakes are this innocuous. Some, in the marketing realm, actually do long-term harm to your campaign. And, as described below, most of these mistakes are especially damaging because they aren’t obvious. Fixing a blog post with a spelling or accuracy issue is one thing. But when you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of best marketing practices, it’s much harder to smooth over the effects.

So, if you’re a new entrepreneur, or unsure if your marketing campaign is going well, take a moment to make sure you aren’t making these five truly damaging mistakes:

1. Ignoring the brand

Trying to market your business without a brand is like throwing a house party without specifying the address. Your brand serves as a foundation of identity for new and old customers alike. It should underline and inform all messaging you put out, from the content of your website to the images on your Facebook banner.

When people see your brand, or notice your logo, or pick up on your style of speaking and area of expertise, they’ll form an opinion of certain traits of your business. Without that connection, your material is floating in space with no association. Plus, the more connections you build, the more familiar your customers will become with your brand, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you. Without that presence or consistency, you won’t be able to build relationships -- and you might not even get credit for your work.

2. Marketing to everyone

You have to choose whom you want to market to, but too many entrepreneurs make the simple choice: market to everybody. After all, “everybody” is the largest possible audience, so it offers the largest possible return, right? Wrong. Even if you could somehow use one selection of platforms to get a specific message to everyone in the world, that message would be too generic for the entire population to value or remember.

Instead, to stand out, you have to be unique, and if you want to make an impression, you have to be relevant. Being both unique and relevant requires you to create specifically crafted messaging for one segment of the population at a time.

3. Making assumptions about an audience 

All that being said, there are some marketers who understand they must create messaging for specific audience segments but still don't do it effectively. In large part, this is because they’ve made broad assumptions about their target audience, rather than relying on data and research to support their ideas.

For example, they might assume that middle-aged men interested in their product would want a stoic, professional voice and bare-bones, straightforward information, when in reality, this audience would prefer a more casual tone, with humor. As a general rule, you should question every assumption you make. Are you making your marketing decisions because of the way you think things work, or because of the way thingsactually work? Data is your only path to the truth.

4. Investing too much (or not enough)

Successful investment in a marketing campaign demands a careful balance. Investing too much money at the start of your campaign, before you’ve gotten to know your target audience intimately, can create excess waste. You don’t know what platforms work best because you haven’t had the opportunity to test them, and you’re essentially gambling on what you think might work in your favor.

On the other hand, investing too little will leave you with few results, and barely enough data to form any meaningful conclusions.

5. Failing to experiment

Marketing isn’t a point-and-shoot game, no matter how much we sometimes want it to be. It’s a game of setting and resetting expectations, getting asymptotically closer to a “perfect” strategy, without ever quite getting there. The only way to get better is by experimenting -- trying new things and being bold with your strategies, to see which ones work and which ones fail.

If you aren’t actively experimenting, you can’t possibly improve, and that means you’ll remain stagnant in your long-term progress. Never rule out a strategy unless you have data proving it to be ineffective; and never turn down an opportunity to learn more about your brand and customers.

In sum, these mistakes aren’t just the most damaging for new entrepreneurs -- they’re also some of the most common. I’ve spoken and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs who have banked their entire strategies on some of these ideas. And, the good news is that if you catch these mistakes early enough,

If, at this moment, you can identify yourself making them, you’ve already won half the battle. 

Source : http://entm.ag/1Sh696u

7 STEPS FOR AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PLAN

With 2016 under way, one thing is clear: social media is now a vital marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. The common question a few years ago, “why should our business use social media?”, is now being replaced with, “how can our business grow with social media marketing?”.

As a social media marketer, this makes me very excited. What doesn’t make me excited is how many businesses are still trying to market on social media without a documentedstrategy. In this post you will learn the seven steps your business must take to create an effective social media marketing strategy.

STEP 1: AUDIT YOUR CURRENT SOCIAL PRESENCE

“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock

Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. A few areas to consider when auditing your business’s social media presence are:

• Which networks are you currently active on
• Are your networks optimized (photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc.)
• Which networks are currently bringing you the most value
• How do your profiles compare to your competitors’ profiles

STEP 2: DOCUMENT WHO YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER IS

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker

You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. For example, if you identified your target market as parents it would be ok. However, if you identify your ideal customer as a parent that lives in the United States, is between 30 and 50 years of age, earns over $70,000, primarily uses Facebook and has an interest in outdoors activities you will have much more success.

Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Answer the following questions to help you come up with a highly focused buyer persona:

• Age
• Location
• Job Title
• Income
• Pain Points (that your business can solve)
• Most Used Social Network

STEP 3: CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA MISSION STATEMENT

“What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.” – Dan Schawbel

Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it. This statement will make it clear exactly what you plan to use your social media presence for and should reflect your brand identity. Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.

An example mission statement might be “to use social media to educate current and potential customers about digital marketing, with a focus on social media marketing.” Once you have this statement documented, it will make it simple for you to decide what to share and create.

If it doesn’t align with your mission statement, forget about it. Businesses that post randomly without a guiding mission will fail. People follow experts, not generalists.

STEP 4: IDENTIFY KEY SUCCESS METRICS

“If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin

How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money. Afterall, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving the bottom line.

A few metrics to consider measuring are:

• Conversion Rate
• Time Spent on Website
• Reach
• Brand Mentions
• Sentiment
• Total Shares

STEP 5: CREATE AND CURATE ENGAGING CONTENT

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates

Sadly, many businesses jump straight to this step. Hopefully this post has made it clear that there are several vital steps that you must take before you start creating and curating engaging content to share on your social media channels.

Let’s now discuss the fun part, posting to social media. You know who your ideal customer is and you used that information to create your social media mission statement. Armed with this information it should be easy for you to begin creating and curating content. So, what exactly is considered content? Here are a few examples of content you could create:

• Images
• Videos
• Blog Posts
• Company News
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Interviews

The list of content ideas goes on and on, but make sure you focus only on forms of content that align with your mission statement, as well as your skill set. Content is what fuels social media, so it is crucial that you consider creating high quality, engaging content as a top priority.

I strongly recommend that you create a content calendar that outlines how often you will post to each network, which topics you will share and when you will share them.

STEP 6: INVEST IN A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL

“We live in times in which ordinary people can do amazing things using the right tools”

Most marketers have a secret, they leverage tools to boost their productivity. Ok, maybe it isn’t a secret, but without tools marketers would face constant burnout (many do even with tools). When it comes to social media, having a social media management tool allows you to scale your efforts with ease.

One of the main benefits of a social media management tool is the ability to schedule posts ahead of time. Remember that content calendar you created? Make sure your scheduled posts in your social media management tool align with your content calendar.

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” – Ronald Coase

This may be the most important step when it comes to succeeding on social media. Even the best social media marketers rely on trial and error. It might seem basic, but tracking your results, analyzing the data and then making tweaks to optimize them is crucial.

Each previous step should be re-evaluated after you have had time to analyze the results of your marketing efforts. Let the data drive you. If it is telling you Facebook or Twitter is your most effective channel, consider doubling down.

A great social media strategy is never set in stone. It is a constant work in progress that changes when necessary. So get out there, create a strategy and start optimizing it as you continue to grow and learn more about your business and your audience.

Source : http://bit.ly/1ZvS857