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I am sure you have heard stories of long lost friends finding each other on Facebook and doesn’t everyone around you seem to be blogging these days? Even Oprah is on Twitter.  With the swirl of social media activity should your business be added to the growing list of companies using social media to find new customers?  Well, the short answer is…it depends.

In order to receive the benefits many gurus tout, you must first get your house in order.

Know your “BEST” customer

Before opening your business’s Twitter account, you need to know everything about your best customers, most importantly how similar people behave online.  Knowing online behavior will tell you which of the many social networks you are most likely to successfully engange your prospects. If your target customer is older and tends to be more of an observer online, his behavior rules out social networks that rely on a high degree of participation (Twitter) and lights the way to Facebook and LinkedIn as opportunities. The folks at Forrester Research have a simple tool to help you score your best customer’s online behavior (view).

Master the basics first

If you don’t already follow a repeatable series of steps utilizing several tactics that result in qualified prospects knocking on your door with a reasonable percentage commiting to becoming new customers then you should delay immediate plans to enter the social media groundswell.  Hold on, isn’t this what using social media is supposed to do? Yes, but because of the less intimate nature of online social connections it takes much longer to build the awareness and credibility essential to getting people to refer you and purchase your products. Initially you should build the core of your marketing system around more established tactics (referral marketing, strategic alliances and partnerships, public relations, email list building, etc.). Having a working marketing system in place will allow you the time (and peace of mind) needed to get the most from your social media efforts.

Have a strategy

A strategy first involves producing a set of goals which for you might include building awareness, generating blog traffic, finding good networking partners, growing your email list or following industry trends.  Once your goals are in place you need to come up with and test several methods to meet your ambitions. This might entail sending 5 automated Twitter posts (tweets) per day to position your firm as a go-to resource; answering user questions on popular forums and driving traffic to your site, etc.  Finally you will need a way to measure your success. Google Analytics is one of the best tools for the job.

Social media is a powerful tool for business “rainmaking” but only after you are ready.  Jump in at the right time and with the right approach and you will see more traffic that will lead to new customers.

How do you use social media?

Add your comment below.

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Tags: blogging, facebook, forum, myspace, social media, social networking, twitter

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm and is filed under social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.