Mack Collier, Author at MackCollier.com

May 15, 2012 by Mack Collier

The Balancing Act Between Writing For Yourself Versus Writing For Your Readers

I think a lot of us struggle with what to write about and WHO we are writing for. I’m also glad that Gini touched on a similar topic today because it reminded me to write about it here. Here’s what Gini said:

“When this blog gained a little bit of popularity, we began to have internal conversations about the type of content we should be writing. You see, what I consider the “smart” posts are never the ones that get shared a lot. Sure, people read them, but not as many comment nor share on their social networks.

The ones that do get a lot of comments and shares? The top 10 this or the such and such is dead.

It kind of makes me nuts. I won’t pretend it doesn’t.”

I am in the same boat. A few years ago on The Viral Garden, I began to notice something. Every post I wrote would get 5-15 comments like clockwork, UNLESS I wrote about music marketing, those posts always got 1-2 comments at best. Most of them got none. This drove me insane, because I really thought there was so much that marketers could learn from how music artists connect with their fans, but my readers never wanted to talk about that, it seemed.

So the next time I wrote about music marketing, I ended the post by pointing out how passionate I am about this topic, but that I noted that the readers never responded to it. I asked if this was really a topic they cared nothing about? Several readers commented that they loved my music marketing posts, but had no idea what to add. Some felt the topic was ‘over their heads’, which is why there really wasn’t much discussion happening around the posts.

And back to Gini’s comment, those Top 10 Reasons Why….posts ALWAYS get shared and linked. I had a guy tell me once that writing list posts was ‘beneath’ me, and that he would never do it. Well, if your readers want that content, and you are writing for your readers, then what choice do you have? Sure, you can play the role of blogging hipster and look down your nose at list posts, but if your readers get value from that type of posts, why not write them?

But that also doesn’t mean that you should ONLY write for your readers, you as a blogger still have to have a passion for your blog, else you’ll lose interest. Personally, I think there needs to be a balance when you are writing your blog. If you decide that you are just writing for yourself, to hell with your readers, then you’d better have a voice that other people LOVE and seek out. Few bloggers are this popular with their readers, IMO. On the other side, if you only write for your readers, I think you’ll eventually lose interest because you won’t be addressing all of the core issues that are important to you.

I think there needs to be a balance, and like it or not, there probably needs to be room for an occasional ‘Top 5 Ways To’ post. What do you think?

May 14, 2012 by Mack Collier

What’s This? Even Rockstars Struggle With Building Engagement Via Social Media?

I had to chuckle at reading this article from Billboard which ponders why Lil Wayne gets more interaction on Facebook than Akon does:

“Lil Wayne was sending out short little posts – it could be ‘hi’ or ‘go Green Bay Packers,'” RootMusic’s doctor of pages, Matt Conn, said at the NARM panel “Social Music, Marketing and Monetization.” “Those things were his personality. Akon’s page would be posting three or four line paragraphs with no new pictures and they were usually about new shows being announced or songs.”

So Lil Wayne is actually trying to connect with his fans, while Akon is trying to promote to his. And we are somehow surprised that one Rockstar has an engagement level that’s 3 times that of the other?

And here’s the article’s takeaway: “The conclusion? Facebook updates need snappy text, high-resolution photographs and items that the artist asks fans to share. The focus in building fan bases has shifted in the last two years from the collecting of email addresses and sending out blasts to accumulating valuable “likes” on Facebook where an artist interacts with fans.”

No, Facebook updates need to be real. So does your communication on all Social Media channels. Want to know a big reason why Rockstars like Amanda Palmer and Lady Gaga are so popular on Social Media sites? Because they share themselves as much or MORE than they promote themselves. They snap pictures getting ready backstage, they show you pictures after their concerts with them out partying with their friends. Even when they do promote themselves, they are honest about why they want you to support them and what it means to them.

Recently, there’s been a few articles claiming that companies are dumping their blogging efforts for Twitter and especially Facebook,because they feel they can get more ‘engagement’ on these sites. A Like or ReTweet is only great if it leads to some other action. People want to engage with companies they trust, companies that are real. That means sometimes you have to forego promoting yourself for instead sharing content that helps your audience.

BTW for the cynics out there that wonder how you monetize this whole ‘being real’ stuff, and how Rockstars can make money off trading jokes on Twitter with their fans, there’s this: On May 1st, Amanda Palmer started a page on Kickstarter trying to raise $100,000 to fund her new record and a tour to support that record. She was hoping to raise $100,000 from her fans by May 31st.

Today is May the 14th, and she’s currently raised over $600,000 from over 12,000 fans. By the time her funding window ends on May 31st, she will have likely raised over a million dollars for this project.

Not a bad return on ‘being real’ on Twitter. Be straight and honest with people, don’t BS them, and you’ll be amazed at how much more ‘engaged’ they’ll be with you. And you might even find out that they’ll give you their business, as well.

PS: Are you signed up for my newsletter that helps companies better understand and utilize Social Media Marketing? It comes to your inbox every Wednesday, and features original content that you won’t find here. If you want to subscribe, click the link, and thanks!

May 9, 2012 by Mack Collier

Three Tips For Creating More Content Via Social Media

(NOTE – This post originally appeared in the first issue of my newsletter that’s aimed at helping companies better utilize Social Media to connect with their companies. Each week’s issue includes original content like this that’s aimed at helping your company or organization improve its Social Media Marketing efforts. Please click here if you would like to subscribe to the newsletter. And thanks!)

I’ve been working with a client that has a problem I bet a lot of you can relate to. They have several blogs, and are constantly struggling with finding enough compelling content for each blog and each channel they have. The Social Media Manager has been trying to get help internally from Subject Matter Experts, but that’s been a frequent dead-end. So instead of actually managing the company’s Social Media efforts, she often becomes the defacto content creator.

Let’s tackle this problem by looking at three different areas:

1 – What type of content can you create?
2 – Can you re-purpose any existing content?
3 – How can you better ‘encourage’ your Subject Matter Experts to become more involved?

What Type of Content Can You Create?

Let’s be honest, creating compelling content is an issue that all social media users face, and it can be an especially difficult challenge for companies. I think that most companies aren’t sure how to handle this, so they default back to what they know best: Their products and services. As I wrote about recently on my blog, Social Media doesn’t function well as a direct-selling channel. So think about the type of content you can create that will be valuable for your customers. I am a big fan of content that teaches vs content that promotes.

For example: Let’s say your company makes cameras. Is it better to write blog posts that tell me why your cameras are the best on the market, or is it better to write blog posts that teach me how to take better pictures? That’s probably what I want, I don’t want to buy the best camera, I want to take the best pictures! If you can teach me how to do that, then I am more likely to give you my business!

Now when it comes to the actual type of content, think about mixing up your media. Don’t focus just on posts and whitepapers. What about videos? Photographs? If you can alternate between different forms of media, that makes your content more interesting. Also think about creating content that can be used in more than one place. A short video interview can go on your website, in a blog post, on Facebook, and on your YouTube channel. That’s four destinations from one piece of content!

Here’s another example; Let’s say you’re going to attend an industry conference. There’s several opportunities for creating content:

1 – You can live-blog the event! All you need to do is recap your experience each day on your blog. This gives your blog unique content that your competitors probably won’t be publishing. Plus, it’s content that people in your industry will find value in.

2 – Take pictures. These pictures can be included in your recap posts on your blog, but can also be shared on your website, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

3 – Do short video interviews with speakers and industry experts in attendance. This is a GREAT way to create content that others will be interested in. Chris Yates at Huddle Productions does a fascinating job with this. Chris and his team attend Social Media events and interview speakers and industry experts, then post those interviews on the company’s blog. Earlier this month at SXSW, Chris snagged an interview with Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore. As luck would have it, right before Chris posted the interview, a major rumor was reported that CNN was going to buy Mashable. So suddenly everyone was looking for any recent interview with Cashmore, and that meant more views for Chris’ video interview with him!

What About Re-Purposing Existing Content?

The odds are you have already created a lot of content that you can re-purpose and use in a new way. A classic example of this is whitepapers. Many companies have whitepapers on their website. Why not take some of your most popular ones, and break them up into multiple blog posts? You can break them up, update any information that needs to be changed, and you’ve got a few new blog posts!

Another idea is taking customer questions or issues, and addressing them via new content. For example, if you see that many customers are having the same question/issue/complaint, why not write a new blog post that addresses it? This will also drive more search traffic to your blog because the odds are if some of your customers are writing about an issue, that other customers are encountering the same thing.

Finally, check your blog’s analytics and see what search terms are leading people to your blog. If you see keyword phrases like ‘How do I…’ or ‘What’s the best way to…’, guess what, those are blog posts! Write a blog post that answers that search query, and you’re set!

How Can You Better Encourage Your Subject Matter Experts to Become Involved?

When it comes to trying to get more involvement from Subject Matter Experts, a frequent mistake companies make is trying to ‘push’ only one method on them. If you are trying to convince a SME to write a monthly blog post for you and they aren’t comfortable with their writing skills, the odds are they won’t want to do it. So give them other options. For example, ask them if they would mind if you interviewed them and had them talk about what they do for a few minutes. Then you could take the video, give a bit of background in a blog post, and you’ve got your post! Or maybe a SME doesn’t want to blog, but they might like the idea of dealing with customers directly on Twitter or Facebook and helping them with their product issues!

A great way to get more involvement from your SMEs is to approach them with the mindset of ‘What would YOU like to do?’ versus ‘Here’s what we’d like for you to do.’ Give them several options, and you greatly increase their chances of contributing in some way.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful. If so, please consider subscribing to my newsletter which every week gives you original content like this that’s aimed at helping your company improve its Social Media Marketing efforts.

April 30, 2012 by Mack Collier

So I Have a Pretty Big Announcement to Make…

…I’m writing a book! Actually I’m writing the only book I’ve ever wanted to write, Think Like a Rockstar! Rockstars have passionate fans that absolutely love them, so why can’t brands as well? The short answer is they CAN, and Think Like a Rockstar will show companies and organizations how they can cultivate advocates for their brands and the business value in doing so!

Here’s some of the main areas that will be addressed by Think Like a Rockstar:

Who are your brand’s fans, and why you need to connect with them instead of simply trying to ‘acquire’ new customers. I’ll walk you through how to not only recognize your fans, but how to connect with them and even how to convert ‘ranters’ into ‘ravers’ (If your company has been struggling with how to respond to ‘negative’ feedback online, this is for you!). I’ll also profile individual brand advocates so you can learn what makes these customers so very special.
I’ll walk you through exactly what Rockstars do to connect with and cultivate their fans. And a lot of what they do is completely confusing and counter-intuitive to most marketers. They do crazy things like give away their product to the people that are most willing to buy it, and instead of trying to blast marketing messages to millions, they go out of their way to connect with only a dozen or two customers at a time. But their methods work, and you’ll learn why. Also, if your company is one of the many struggling to build engagement around your social media marketing efforts, Think Like a Rockstar will teach you how to solve this common marketing problem.
An overview to becoming a Fan-Centric company. Yep, after this you’ll have no more excuses! This will show you what needs to happen both internally and externally in order to create a framework where you are directly connected to your brand’s fans, and they to you.
And oh yes, there will be case studies, lots and lots of case studies! I’ll look at dozens of examples of how both Rockstars and brands are embracing and empowering their biggest fans. I’ll walk you through exactly what they did, explain why it worked, and show you how you can apply those lessons to YOUR marketing efforts!

I’ll be sharing more in the coming days/weeks/months about Think Like a Rockstar leading up to its publication (I’ll be sharing with you those dates as soon as they are nailed down). Think Like a Rockstar will be published by McGraw-Hill and I could not be happier to be working with them. Plus my editor, Casey Ebro, immediately ‘got’ why the idea behind Think Like a Rockstar was so big, and has been so enthusiastic about this project. That’s critical, if you are thinking about writing a book, the importance of having a passionate editor that believes in the potential of your idea cannot be understated.

For the last four years, people have been asking me ‘So, when are YOU going to write a book?’ I haven’t written a book because I didn’t want to write a book, I wanted to write THIS book. Seriously, this is the only book I’ve ever wanted to write, ‘writing a book’ is not on my bucket list but I wanted to write this book because I believe in the concept that strongly.

This wouldn’t be happening without the help and advice of many people, but I wanted to mention a few friends that really helped me turn this project into reality. They are Beth Harte, Lisa Petrilli, Lou Imbriano, Ann Handley and Amy Africa. And an additional thanks to Lisa for introducing me to my agent, Linda Langton, who was an immense catalyst in helping this project see the light of day. I’ll have a future post on the value of getting an agent versus going it alone when trying to get a book deal (and I tried both!).

Thanks to everyone that’s been so supportive of my being able to write Think Like a Rockstar. Now if you don’t see me blogging as much here for the next 4-5 months, hopefully you’ll understand why 😉

April 26, 2012 by Mack Collier

Is Social Media Turning Us All Into Attention Whores?

I participate in a lot of Twitter chats. Granted, I’m no @LttleWys, but I at least lurk in a few every week. The one thing I’ve noticed is the ‘power’ Twitter users, say those with over 50,000 followers, almost never join Twitter chats. UNLESS they are the co-host/guest host. In other words, if they can’t be the center of attention, it’s not worth their time.

In fact, I started looking at the Twitter streams for a few of the ‘big name’ Twitter users. I saw the same pattern: Twitter bigshot throws out statement, such as ‘The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all’, or some-such business witticism. Then the Twitter power-user spends the next 30 minutes answering @ replies to his statement.

Folks, that’s not engagement. I even tweeted this, saying something like ‘If all you do is answer tweets directed at you, then you aren’t engaging, you’re responding.’

Then after about 5 minutes of responding to ‘amen!’ replies to my statement, a tiny voice inside my head said ‘hey dumbass, you just did the same thing you were trying to call out the Twitter ‘power’ users for doing’. Oops.

Is that being social? Really? And if you think about it, that’s how most of us use social media, because that’s how these sites have trained us to do it. Go look at your Facebook newsfeed: It’s an endless stream of friends and connections throwing content out there, then other people responding to it. We’ve been taught that the content that gets the most reaction is the ‘best’.

In other words, we’ve been taught that social media is about creating content that gets the most Likes, the most RTs. We’ve been taught that these represent levels of engagement.

Folks being engaged with someone’s content is NOT being engaged with them. And if someone IS engaged with your content, that doesn’t mean you are engaged with them.

‘Dude get off my back, the majority of my tweets are replies! I engage!’ Really? Are those replies where you tweet someone out of the blue and ask them how their day is going, or do those replies come from you sitting back and fielding replies to your cutesy statements that you tweet out every couple of hours?

Think about it.

We don’t always have to be the center of attention. Social Media is a wonderful idea, but instead of focusing on the SOCIAL part, it seems we are gravitating more to the MEdia part. It’s all about creating content that draws attention to ourselves. And to be fair, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone.

So what do you think; Is Social Media making us more or less social? We’ll be getting all social and discussing this tonight at #DadChat, starting at 8pm Central on Twitter. #DadChat is run by my friend Bruce Sallan, who has asked me to co-host tonight’s topic.

I’m looking forward to the discussion, hope to see you there!

April 24, 2012 by Mack Collier

Google Recruits Nine Businesses as YouTube Marketing Ambassadors, Turns Them Into Teachers and Mentors

There’s no shortage of businesses and organizations that have smartly leveraged YouTube as a channel to grow their business, launch a new product or create brand awareness. Recently, YouTube identified nine of the best examples of businesses that are using the video-sharing site smartly as a marketing channel, and made them their first ever YouTube Marketing Ambassadors.

The nine businesses were chosen based on their ability to leverage YouTube as a channel to perform one of the following marketing functions: Launch a new product, Spark a conversation, or Find new customers.

From Google’s blog: “To recognize these businesses and their work in fostering a culture of entrepreneurship on YouTube, we’re introducing our first ever YouTube Marketing Ambassadors—a group of outstanding organizations that have used YouTube to drive sales and grow operations. We’ve invited nine businesses from across the country to participate in this program, and last week our YouTube Ambassadors joined us at our headquarters for a two-day summit to meet with executives and learn more about online tools for businesses.”

Here’s the part I absolutely love about this program: Inclusion in the program means the ambassadors will now begin teaching other businesses and organizations how to use the same strategies on YouTube that they did. Upon joining the program, each of the nine businesses picks a non-profit and immediately begins mentoring them on how to get set up on YouTube. Throughout the year, the ambassadors will contribute to a special YouTube for Marketers page on Google Plus, as well as participate in Hangouts designed to teach other businesses and organizations how to correctly use YouTube to reach their business goals.

This is why it is such a smart move for companies to embrace and empower their advocates. Everyone wins here: Nine deserving non-profits now will learn how to use YouTube from a business that already has a proven track record of using the site to grow its business. The YouTube Marketing Ambassadors besides feeling awesome about being able to Pay It Forward, get a ton of additional exposure from their involvement in this program. YouTube not only gets a lot of additional exposure for the program, but it also gets to better identify some of its members that are best using the site, which means it can better encourage other businesses to join the site. Plus, it now has a way to bring future members of the YouTube Marketing Ambassador program into the fold, so the program becomes self-sustaining.

Everyone wins. Which typically happens when businesses and organizations Think Like a Rockstar and reach out to their biggest fans.

April 23, 2012 by Mack Collier

Twitter Helps The Tuscaloosa News Win The Pulitzer Prize

I live in an area of the South with the unfortunate nickname of ‘Tornado Alley’. I’ve lived in this area for the majority of my life, and we’ve all become accustomed to being on guard for the potential for tornadoes in the Spring in April and May, and then again in the Fall. I live in the NW corner of Alabama, and typically the tornadoes come at us from the West, through Arkansas, northern Mississippi, and then continue on toward Huntsville and Georgia.

I’ve been extremely lucky to have had dozens of tornadoes come through this general area in the last 30+ years I’ve lived here, but I’ve never been directly in the path of one. I was afraid that might change on April 27th, 2011. Typically, the most we have to deal with is heavy rain, maybe some wind and a few fallen tree limbs. But this time was different. There were high winds, and the power was knocked out quickly. I was using my smartphone to stay connected to Twitter for as long as I could. Sure enough, there was a tornado coming from Mississippi that was headed toward the NW corner of Alabama. Finally, the power on my smartphone gave out, and the winds got stronger and for the first time in my life, I heard tornado sirens here. I didn’t even know we had them, but apparently they were coming from a high school about 5 miles away.

After about 30 fearful minutes, the winds finally began to die, and the sky began to clear. I would learn later that the tornado had missed where I was by about 5 miles, but it cut a devastating path. As expected, it moved past us and on toward Huntsville, but grew considerably weaker as it did. Power finally came back on and by then the storms were almost at Huntsville, but didn’t pose as grave a threat as they had to this area.

The power finally came back on, and I got back on Twitter and there were a lot of people asking if I was ok and I happily told them all was fine. At least that’s what I thought. What I didn’t realize was that a second tornado had torn through the state, this one had come through central Mississippi, and had brought catastrophic damage to Tuscaloosa, and was headed toward Birmingham. I saw a few people tweeting that ‘it’s bad’ in reference to Tuscaloosa. I have a group in Twitter created of reporters that cover Alabama sports, and most of them are based in Tuscaloosa. I quickly checked the tweets from that list, and this was one of the first ones I saw from @AaronSuttles:

I was hoping the damage wasn’t as bad as everyone was tweeting, but then I started seeing the pics:

The Tuscaloosa News’ staff did a great job of leveraging Twitter as a tool to do live (and heart-breaking) reporting that day, updating the rest of us as to the extent of the damage, as well as how to get help to those affected. And last week their efforts were rewarded with The Pulitzer Prize. Ironically, last year’s entries were the first that considered content created via social media tools as part of the effort in covering a breaking news story.

I’ve always said that the companies and organizations that succeed in using social media are the ones that use the tools to create value for the people they are trying to connect with. For journalists, social media tools such as Twitter provide a way for them to report breaking news stories almost as they are happening. They are able to give live accounts of what they are seeing and experiencing within seconds of it happening, where before the best they could hope for was a story that would appear in the next day’s paper. In this instance, social media not only enhances the journalist’s ability to report the story, but also creates much more valuable information for the people following them.

Even if the information is about such devastating events as the April 27th tornado.

April 20, 2012 by Mack Collier

Never Believe That Your Voice Isn’t Worth Sharing With Us

Over the last week I had a chat with two of my dear friends. These are people that for the past few years have both been very influential in the social media space, and have both garnered a high level of respect.

One of those friends was Beth Harte. I called her up to see what was new with her. Well she had just deleted her Facebook and Twitter accounts, she told me.

Wait…what?

Yep, Beth had quit cold-turkey on the two biggest social media sites on the planet. Why? Because she wanted a fresh start, and wanted to be using these sites because she WANTED to, not because she felt the pressure to maintain a presence she may not care about anymore.

This is one of the many things I love about Beth: She is true to who she is. How many of you right now are following people you would like to unfollow but you don’t cause want to ’cause drama’. Or maybe you’d like to pull the plug on a social media site, but you can’t bring yourself to do it?

But the other conversation I had with a different friend was the one that really touched me. And I’m not gonna tell you who it was cause it doesn’t matter and I wouldn’t have told you about my conversation with Beth if she hadn’t posted it on Facebook that she was leaving.

The second friend told me that she sometimes felt as if what she had to say wasn’t ‘worthy’ of other people. As if her voice wasn’t as valuable and didn’t deserve to be heard as much as someone else’s.

How many of you have thought the exact same thing? I will tell you the same thing I told my dear friend: That’s total bullshit.

Probably the most wonderful thing about Social Media is that these tools give all of us a chance to express our own unique voice. In my mind, that is truly the promise of social media.

Perhaps the worst thing about social media is that some people will believe that their voice doesn’t deserve to be heard because someone has been talking louder and for longer than they have.

Stop it. The only reason you are reading what I am writing today is because in 2005 when I started blogging I was stubborn/dumb enough to believe I had every right to put my thoughts out there with Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki or whoever the hell I wanted to. And I had every right to make a complete fool out of myself in the process (and often did!).

But the point is…I always believed that my voice had value and that I deserved to be heard.

So do you. It literally breaks my heart that some people in this space believe that their voice doesn’t deserve to be heard because their Klout score isn’t high enough, or because they don’t have X number of Twitter followers.

If I had just one wish for you, it would be that you would stop worrying about what others think and say and do, and find your own voice. Find the passion that stirs your soul, and let it loose. Never believe for one minute that your thoughts aren’t worth sharing. Why do I keep writing about Think Like a Rockstar? Because I believe in my heart that the future of marketing relies on companies better connecting with their customers and cultivating advocates for their brand. If you don’t want to read those posts then I will shake your hand and wish you well, because I’m not changing my voice to suit your ears.

And neither should you.

I’ve never really watched American Idol, but on Wednesday night I was watching and saw this performance by Skylar. Now since I am a speaker, I tend to focus on the delivery of speakers moreso than the topics they are covering. I do the same thing with singers, I watch their posture and how they relate to the crowd. That was what mesmerized me about Skylar’s performance.

First, she’s singing Gaga. A country version of Born This Way that many in the audience probably hadn’t heard before. She swapped up the lyrics in some places. In other words, she took the song and made it her own. And refused to apologize for it. She was completely in charge of the room and totally confident because even though she was singing a version of the song that might have been unfamiliar to some who heard it, she sang it in her voice. Which is why it was so awesome.

http://youtu.be/0zLEHNsbLmI

My wish for you is that if you aren’t already, that you’ll find the courage to start sharing your unique voice. Because we are waiting to hear it.

April 19, 2012 by Mack Collier

How Much Should Your Company Pay For Social Media?

I am obsessed with the Real-Time feature that Google Analytics added a few months ago, and am constantly checking it throughout the day. It shows you how many visitors are active on your site at any moment, as well as what page they are viewing, and how they arrived at your blog.

At almost any time during the day when I check who is currently on this blog, the odds are at least one person is here because they were sent here from Google after searching for something related to the cost of social media. These three posts I wrote on How Much Social Media Costs Companies in 2010, 2011 and 2012 are by far the 3 most popular posts on this blog.

What’s been interesting to me is that I’ve received two main forms of feedback on these posts, and the prices quoted:

1 – Small business owners and those that are self-employed think the prices are way too high.

2 – People that work for large companies think the prices are way too low.

So this feedback, coupled with the fact that many people are searching for information on pricing, tells me that many companies and business owners are in the dark as to how much basic social media marketing services will cost them. And as much as we would like to believe that most companies in 2012 ‘get’ the importance of Social Media, from what I’m seeing, there’s no shortage of companies that are just now starting to investigate if social media marketing is for them.

So if your company is trying to decide how much it will cost to begin using social media, here’s what to consider:

1 – Think about WHAT you want to accomplish with social media. Here’s a post I wrote on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But Were Afraid to Ask!). No, you don’t have to create an elaborate 50-page document on how your family-owned seafood restaurant should be using social media, but the point here is to have you put some thought into why you want to use social media. The quickest way to waste money on social media is to invest in using tools that won’t help you accomplish your goals. Otherwise, most companies could simply launch a blog, and start accounts on Twitter and Facebook and be done with it.

2 – Start small, grow as you better understand the tools. Let’s be honest, doing social media effectively takes a serious time commitment. The companies that we today laud as wonderful social media case studies are frequently large companies that have had a dedicated social media team in place for years. So if your company’s social media team is comprised of YOU, and you are new to social media, suddenly diving in and trying to launch 5 different social media accounts for your business is probably the fastest way to go no where.

Instead, as you begin to flesh out why you want to start using social media, think about the goals you have, and then prioritize the tools that will help you reach those goals. For example, if your tech company wants to build awareness and you believe that a blog, presence on Google Plus and Twitter will best help you, the prioritize those tools in order of importance. So instead of launching all three presences at once, maybe it makes more sense to first start on creating and growing your blog. Then after a few weeks, you can begin to spend more time with Google Plus, using it first as a tool to get better research, then as a way to promote your new posts. You may start interacting with some customers there, and you can follow them to Twitter and do the same there. Just remember this, it is far easier to build and audience and move it to a new location than it is to try to build two new audiences at the same time.

3 – Avoid the shiny, follow the value. Invariably, the social media space creates a new ‘darling’ tool every 6-12 months. This time last year, everyone was in love with Quora. Earlier this year, everyone was on the Pinterest bandwagon, and even now that’s starting to die down. For whatever reason, this space loves to overhype newish tools, and you’ll suddenly see all manner of posts and articles devoted to why every business MUST now be on Quora/Plus/Pinterest.

Don’t believe the hype. You shouldn’t ignore these new tools, but you should research them to make a thoughtful decision on whether or not your business should adopt its usage. Let value created determine if you jump on the Flavor of the Month, not hype.

4 – Don’t start using Social Media due to fear of being left behind. This ties in with the above point, but you need to adopt social media based on sound business value, not on fear that ‘everyone’s doing it and we’ll be left behind if we don’t start’. I had a company contact me once and say that they were ready to start using social media ‘the sooner, the better!’. I started asking some questions, and it turns out that they hadn’t even considered using social media until an industry newsletter they were subscribed to came out with its latest issue proclaiming that every business owner in that space had to start using social media right now!

I’ll say again, from my experience and in my opinion, most businesses are NOT using social media, and most of the ones that are, aren’t doing so very effectively. So the idea that all your competitors are using social media and doing exceptionally well with it, is most likely a myth. Granted, you shouldn’t ignore social media, but you have plenty of time to do some research and decide if social media is right for you. Again, let your decision to adopt social media be dictated by the value it can create for you, not the fear of being left behind.

Now, I raised these points because time is the most common currency companies will spend when it comes to social media. These points were mentioned to help keep you from spending more time on your social media efforts than is necessary.

But let’s talk more specifically about costs. Let’s start with an example of a mid-sized company that has one person in charge of social media, and one person that helps her on a part-time basis. Both of these people are eager to learn, but have limited knowledge of social media. This company has decided to launch a blog. There’s three ways they can go about this:

1 – Do it themselves. The advantage to this approach is that obviously, they won’t have to directly pay for the blog. But since the two employees will be literally learning as they go, there will be a big time commitment involved, and when you consider their salaries, that’s a real expense.

2 – Hire an agency to ghost-write the blog for them. This will be the most expensive option, but it also frees up the two employees to not worry about the content creation process. Still, if the employees aren’t actively monitoring the blog and responding to issues raised by customers on (and off) the blog, it can cause more trouble than its worth.

3 – Do the blog themselves, but hire a consultant or agency to train/mentor them. Unless I am extremely confident in the company’s ability to handle the blog themselves, I typically encourage them to go this route. And yes, I offer Social Media and Blog Training. A big reason why I like this option for the company is because you can customize the level of training you think you need or can afford. For example, if you hire an agency to create and write your blog for you, you will incur setup fees as well as likely several thousand dollars a month in ongoing costs. But by doing the blog yourself with ongoing training, you can spend less plus typically tier the training costs so they decrease as you become better at developing your blog.

So if you want to spend as little as possible on social media marketing, remember these tips:

1 – Do your research and build a plan. Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with social media. This will save you a ton of time down the road. And for smaller companies especially, time is money.

2 – Start small, then grow. Unless you have a 10-person social media team and a 6-figure budget, it’s probably best to start with one or two social media tools, then build others out as you can.

3 – Comparison shop. Get quotes from multiple consultants/agencies for the services you think you will need.

If your company is using social media, what pricing advice would you give other companies? Did you do it yourself, or pay someone to help?

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