Social Media: What’s in your Toolkit?

Whether yours is a Fortune 500 Company with a new product rollout or an entrepreneurial venture expanding a regional brand to a national market, social media is a communications tool that can help you achieve your business goals.

It’s a flexible medium allowing you to target your audience, build community and measure ROI. It also reaches scores of interested consumers who want to do business.

How do you get started?

First and foremost, have a goal and a plan. As with any other successful communication campaign designed to grab market share, you need to know what you want and have a plan to generate desired outcomes.

Second, you must understand your audience and what they want. One of the great things about social media is that you can query your audience directly and ask their opinion, reach out to your online community, and listen to what they tell you to build your campaign from there.

If you really want to expand your audience, consider a Facebook ad campaign. Similar to a Google AdWords campaign, creating it is somewhat self intuitive but perhaps more effective if you engage the services of someone who knows what they’re doing and can provide you with a comprehensive course of action.

A social media campaign can post excellent results for service firms as well as product companies. Nordstrom, for example, uses its Facebook presence to garner fans who are already customers or have the potential to become one. As seasons change, new merchandise is featured, with a link back to Nordstrom’s website for the consumer to learn more and make purchases. Because Nordstrom has created a venue for fashion-savvy shoppers who want up-to-the-moment fashion news, the community expands, and sales continue to rise.

Using Twitter to make periodic announcements for a Facebook initiative can add even more velocity to your campaign. Use Twitter to announce events, arrivals of new merchandise and sales promotions. Think of Twitter as the social media version of a traditional billboard placed strategically by the roadside.

Retail isn’t the only industry that can successfully use social media to build business awareness. Consider the legal industry. An attorney, whose practice is labor law, can use a traditional news release to reach HR and business audiences, announcing the launch of a blog on labor law.

A simple campaign could include a reference to the blog in the signature line of all outgoing emails along with a link icon to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. To be on the safe side, be sure and include the appropriate legal disclaimers required by your state bar association on all social media outreaches.

Last, understand this: social media is not a fad. Incorporate it now into your toolkit of tactics and be prepared to grow your business.