Should You Use Social Media?

It’s pretty simple, , if you can answer “yes” to the question below, Social Media is the right activity to support your marketing efforts:

Do your customers, and potential customers use social media to learn about and communicate with business like yours?

However, if you answered “no” to the question above, engaging in social media for your business is simply a waste of your time and money. Figure out where your customers are learning about businesses like yours, and go there!

Now, even if you answered “yes,” to Question 1 above, try these questions below.

1. Do you have a marketing and communications plan for your business?
2. Do you have the resources to “continue the conversation?” In other words, do you have the time, money and energy to pursue fully communicating with your customers via social media?
3. If you are part of a multi-unit company, do you have permission from your marketing or communications lead to engaging in Social Media?NOTE: In chain or multi-unit organizations, it is much more efficient to have a single corporate account to serve all locations. It is confusing for your participants to have multiple streams of messaging coming from various sources within the same company.

If you answered “no” to one or more of the questions above, social media is not the marketing activity for you at this time. Now, don’t worry – that doesn’t mean it will never be the marketing activity for you. What it does mean is that you have some steps to take to ensure that you are prepared to embrace Social Media as part of your everyday business plan.

I’m sure you’re tired of answering questions, huh? In these next two sections, we’ll answer a few questions for you!