But the thing about social media marketing and rules is that nobody can agree on what the rules are. Even if you pull back from the strict approach of rules and call them guidelines, nobody can agree on that either.
In the real world, rules are created in response to some complaint or action by someone or many someones. I recently checked into a beach hotel and there was a list of rules on the nightstand. Along with a reminder that guests not clean fish in their room (really?), was one that said they were not responsible for inclement weather. Wait, does that mean that someone complained to the hotel about the weather? I booked my beach vacation and you were supposed to guarantee my family five out of seven sunny days.
In social media every blogger, speaker, consultant and street corner huckster has their own set of rules. And they all contradict each other. Pick a common question and try to find a single answer. Try this one. How many times should I tweet? Once a day? Ten times a day? Multiple times for each tweet? And is that my content or someone else’s? You can pretty much find any answer you want. Want to justify your plan to your boss? You can probably find a blog post out there that supports what you want to do. It may not be from the most reputable source, but someone has likely recommended it.
The makes it easy to follow the rules. But it makes it even easier to break the rules.
What’s a B2B marketer to do?
Since so many B2B companies have very different audiences and marketing requirements, here are some suggestions for creating your own rules for social media. And by following these steps you will have a much better understanding of why you are doing what you are doing. You won’t need some blog post telling you what to do. Well, except this one.
1. Establish goals and objectives for your social media efforts.
This will help you measure success.
2. Decide if you are using social media for lead generation or customer retention.
This will drive your content and calls to action.
3. Determine if you need a local or global presence.
This will set the times of day you share content.
4. Talk to your customers to learn what social media sites provide value to them.
This will identify what sites to focus on.
5. Review what your competitors are doing on social media
This is give you a sense of social media awareness in the industry.
6. Realistically examine your resources.
This will keep you from over-extended you or your team.
7. Test and measure everything you do.
This will ensure you keep doing the things that work for your audience and drop the ones that don’t.
8. Give it time.
This shows you understand that social media does not change your marketing overnight.
Photo credit: Flickr
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This post appeared first on Socialmediab2b.com
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