Moving to Social Media Requires Time and Commitment

It is vital for business owners to take advantage of the advertising and branding power offered by social media.  However, moving to social media is no easy task.  It will take time and commitment to do it properly.

One of the main mistakes people make when trying to get started with social media is joining too many networks too quickly.  It takes a lot of hard work to build up an account on only one site.  Imagine having to do so on many of them at once.  It is best for you to start out on only one or two sites and work your way up.

You may also be tempted to join the main social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Although they are certainly larger and can really offer a lot more potential customers, there are smaller networks that can give you great results too.  The main advantage of smaller networks is they can offer more targeted visitors to your profile.

Your main goal after you join a social media network is to build an army of loyal followers.  Needless to say, this will take a significant amount of time.  Do not be tempted to use shortcuts either in an effort to get thousands of followers.  It can be a mistake to focus only on the number of people you have following you.  It is best to focus your efforts on finding people who are willing to engage with you and build a relationship.

With this in mind, you should not just put up a page and expect people to flock to it.  You will need to engage with the community and participate in conversations.  Do not make all of your social media activities focused only on promoting your brand though.

Although you will certainly need to spend some time posting on social media networks, avoid going overboard.  Your messages will be much less effective if you spam your fans and followers too much.  The more you annoy them, the more likely they will be to unfriend or stop following you.

Before you join a network, you should spend some time coming up with a plan.  Think about how many posts you will make on a weekly basis.  Also, who will be responsible for making these posts?  Whenever fans post questions to your page, who will be responsible for answering them?

Social media networks can help send a lot of traffic and customers to your business.  Just remember to be patient as reaping the results will take time and commitment.