The start to any project involves a plan and a desired outcome. When applying a plan to a business or company, this shouldn’t be based solely on goals and objectives, but rather on what the company is striving to accomplish. Ask, “What is the purpose of your organization?”. This question will help to build a community within the company.

To start your social media strategy you should run over these ideas:

1. Create a game plan and stick to it (Know what and when to publish content.)

When creating a game plan you have to have a strategy. Look for ways to build, participate and engage in social media. You must know what you are going to push for as a business and what you are striving to achieve. Being openly aware of this is that starting point to creating a community. The content and programming found within your social media sites should be community created. Meaning, know what your audience is into and structure the content around that.

2. Treat each channel as an individual (Tweets may be educational while viewers on Instagram want something visual.)

Each social media site has a different marketing strategy, and it is up to you to treat each one right. On a blog, the information that you share may be very educational with examples of “how-to’s”. This is great for other bloggers looking for that information. Now take Instagram for example. This app is made up of photographs and other visuals meant to catch the audiences eye. Knowing what to post is essential when gaining more customers and keeping them happy with the right content.

3. Go above and beyond in customer service (DO NOT IGNORE any comment or interaction your page receives.)

Creating richer content can help your social media market grow. The people you connect with on your sites are the people you need to post for. When posting information for your business, you should think about what you would want to read if you were the customer. A common question brought up is how many tweets to post in a day. Don’t let people tell you exactly what to do. It varies depending on the company. Take a look at what your audience responds to and how often they are interacting with what you post. It is vital that you interact with your customers or followers on your social media sites. If you want to keep them engaged, you must post and reply to their comments. Courtesy is key.

*Remember the engagement rate: Don’t post too much, but not too little either. 

4. Embrace Mishaps (We are all human, and as a business, you cannot be embarrassed by a mishap, but learn to run with it.)

A mistake usually isn’t gone unnoticeable, but whatever you do – do not delete a post with a mishap. Chances are, someone would notice if you delete and repost all the time rather than fixing a mistake by making another comment or editing what you posted. There will be times when a big mistake may happen. When this occurs, find a way to embrace it and turn it into something positive. It may not work everytime, but at least your audience will know that you tried to fix what went wrong. Your audience should accept the fact that we are human, and that we post to interact with people, it isn’t some computer doing all the work.

Finding ways to maintain and improve these social media strategies is necessary when building up your company. You should look at each social platform as an ecosystem. Inside that ecosystem are personal brands, advertising, publishing, networking, and more. Taking a look at Twitter for example, you @connect with different companies and people and take the opportunity to #discover new ideas that other people have, and interact with them. This will help to maximize your potential features, change your results and outcomes, and help your customers/audience with what they value. Keep in mind the quality of your connections and posts. Ask yourself, “am I becoming engaged?”. Social media has an impact on your company and it is driving business revenue. For more example of building your site, social media ecosystem and ways to boost revenue, check out these sites:

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/24/social-media-advertising

http://www.forbes.com/sites/fredcavazza/2012/03/12/an-overview-of-the-social-media-ecosystem/

http://blog.eloqua.com/social-media-drives-revenue