A Social Media Strategy Guide: The Big Three

I’ve been asked about social media strategy a lot this past week, so I figured it might be helpful if I outline the primary approach to take for the big social networks. These are, of course, only my opinions about how to best leverage these tools.

Twitter: Keywords, Keywords, and Conversations
Twitter is about knowing your keywords, monitoring them, and using them to approach and interact with your audience. Your keywords are common terms that succinctly summarize what you do or offer, so for example, I would probably use “web design” “internet technology” and “technology training”. Use a tool such as HootSuite to develop streams of your keywords, tied to a place.

Using this social media strategy, I could find, in real-time, every publicly available Twitter conversation within 50 miles of Washington, DC and then choose who I want to engage with on an individual basis – whether through a reply, a retweet, or a follow. The goal here is to build community and show your expertise.

In addition, established businesses often use Twitter as frontline customer service, responding openly and transparently to clients’ tweets about the company. This strategy can cast your business as tech-savvy and responsive to customer issues, but make sure you follow through and do what you promise!

Facebook: One Big Party
Think of your company Facebook page as a party. When you host a party, you don’t spend your time talking to every person in the room. In much the same way, the social media strategy with Facebook is about inviting your community and letting them talk to each other. Play the role of a good host by facilitating chatter and entertaining your guests, but don’t make it all about you. The people who bother to “like” your page probably already engage with your company, or at the very least, they’re interested in what you do. Use your Facebook page to support and grow this interest, without overtly selling anything.

Some companies I think have excellent Facebook pages are Zappos, Oreo, and The Daily Show. Zappos uses its page to talk about fashion in general, while Oreo asks leading questions about how delicious its cookie is, and TDS posts the best lines from the most recent show, along with links to its videos.

LinkedIn: Connections & Groups
LinkedIn has two powerful assets for your social media strategy. The first is the one you’re probably already using: connections. LinkedIn is a professional network with work-relevant user profiles which have tons of networking and recruiting potential.

However, LinkedIn also offers a groups feature, which has lately become my primary way of advertising my business. Identify and join the relevant groups for what your business does. For instance, I’m in the Web Freelancers, the WordPress, the WordPress Web Designers, the SEO for WordPress, and the WordPress Experts groups. I get daily summaries via email for each group, as well as email notifications for every reply to threads I’m following. I make a point of a) not spending more than 15 minutes per week posting on these boards, and b) not posting unless I have something useful to say. As a consequence, people who come looking to hire see me as helpful and qualified, and other professionals connect with me. It’s a win all around!

Oh, and if there isn’t already a group for your niche, make one! People will join.

…+1: Google+
To my knowledge, Google+ hasn’t launched business pages yet, though it most definitely plans to later this year. I expect the social media strategy for Google+ will end up something akin to that for Facebook, but that’s just a guess. G+ is still in beta, and Google could take it in many different directions.

So these are the major social networks that just about any company will want to use. Next week, I’ll look at a handful of niche social networks, as well as who should use them and how. Be sure to let me know in the comments what social media strategies you’re using and if I should amend/revise any of my advice here!