3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014 (Part 3)

Let’s review:

3 Social Media Success Tips for 2014:

1. Focus on the Best Metrics for Your Business.
2. Listen to Others, but Determine Your Path
3. Devote enough Resources to Make it Worthwhile.

This 3 part series is based on my 10 months of working in the Social Media trenches full time as a Social Media Professional for a $50 million internet retailer.  During the previous 10 years, I had been active in Social Media Marketing in addition to 20+ years in the Media Marketing and Advertising worlds.

Finding someone who can create a Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Tumbler account for your business is easy.  Finding someone who understands and follows timeless relationship marketing principles is a lot harder.  Combining the two is nearly impossible.

This is not a job for an intern.

This is not a job for someone with questionable ethics, lifestyle or maturity.

That being said, you also need to find someone who can speak for your brand and has a keen sense of customer service and empathy, while also looking out for the best interests of your company.

You will need to pay this person a decent wage, or outsource it to a company of professionals. (The company I recently joined has this as a service we provide. Contact me for details.)

Back to last year.

Our company had an eCommerce department of 6.  Each of us had our areas of expertise including: affiliate marketing, email, social media, graphic design, our department geek, and a director to head up our division.  We also worked closely with the merchandising team and marketing team.

All of us had decent salaries and perks.  We also had budgets for spending. My Social Media budget included $50,000 I could give away via contests; and $80,000 in paid social media ads.  Actual amounts varied from month to month.  Remember our estimated annual revenue was $50 million, and social media was only a tiny fraction of what we did.  Our biggest spend in my department was email marketing and Search Engine Optimization and Marketing for our 30,000+ products.

These dollar figures are all relative to the total revenue of the company and the focus on Internet driven sales. While I say they are an Internet retailer, they also have a thriving but shrinking catalog based business that has been around for decades. They know their future is on the web.

If your business is not web based, then you need to make appropriate investments in other areas of marketing too.

The key to any of this social media marketing, or any marketing, for that matter, is to be where your customers are and use appropriate people and resources.

Your thoughts, questions, and comments are always welcome.