Carolyn Maul, writing a guest post on Kyle Lacy’s Blog,  describes a number of key issues to think about in crafting an effective social media strategy.

I’m still very surprised by the number of entrepreneurial, small business, middle-market companies that have not yet crafted a strategy or evaluated the opportunity/potential to add social media to their marketing, sales, and lead generation mix. Here are a few questions I’d like to pose:

• Do you think your business is the exception to the rule – that you are unique and social media cannot apply in your situation?
• Have you done any type of research or benchmarking to prove/invalidate that social media might help your business?
• Is the unknown of ROIs, comparable companies doing it, lack of quantitative research, questionable metrics holding you back?
• Are you so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of what can be done that it is easier to just be an ostrich?
• Do you lack the expertise within your company to accurately judge the potential of using social media – and you don’t trust consultants?

In my executive search practice, social media has allowed us to communicate with our target audience beyond the obnoxious direct email approach that everyone hates. Social media has allowed us to communicate in the way our clients want to receive information – do they want it as an attachment, a slide deck, on Twitter, Facebook, or through a LinkedIn Group we host. Sometimes, presenting the same message in multiple media/formats helps to reinforce your brand, credibility, and expertise/capability. Social Media has provided the opportunity for us to establish our expertise, credibility, and through leadership far above our peer community in executive search by educating, teaching, and training through social media by using podcasting, blogging, and Q&A style forums. We give away all our trade secrets on how to hire more effectively through social media. The result has been the creation of one of the more popular sites on the Internet for information on how to hire top talent. Once CEOs and other executives begin to take information, their next step is to engage with us on their particular issue, and finally asking us to help solve their problems and issues.

Just telling others you make the best product or have the best service is not enough. Today, customers want to engage slowly, learn from you, have a chance to interact, and keep peeling back layers until the feel comfortable giving you money. The old days of simply having the best sales people calling on customers is NOT enough. Today, most studies reinforce that customers/clients are very selective in whom they will buy from. The Internet has given them transparent information about you and your products/services. Are you managing this communication channel with your customers and clients or are you letting your competitors dictate the dialogue?

Forget about marketing, sales, and lead generation for a moment. Are you using social media to recruit better talent, deeply engage with your employees, and strengthen existing customer relationships by using it in customer service?

What have you done so far to start creating a social media strategy for the various elements of your business in which you can see an immediate payoff?

To read the full article, click the link below:

Crafting a Winning Social Media Strategy

Are you missing  leaving “money on the table” or missing opportunities by not crafting a strong social media strategy right now and using it for sales, marketing, lead generation, customer retention, and recruiting top talent.

Barry Deutsch