In 2014, social media trumps all other internet tools as the single most used online medium.   Many businesses are turning to the internet as a way to market their business – through online advertising and using social media to attract new clients and retain old ones.

While social media is undoubtedly a great medium for building a business, you need to put a strategy into effect early on in order to get the best results possible.   Simply singing up for social media accounts and blindly posting daily isn’t going to ensure the results you’re looking for.   Below are 6 strategies to implement as you move towards your 2015 business year.   With careful planning, you can hit a business home run with social media marketing.

1) Create a strategy for posts/tweets and stick to it –  Decide how many tweets and posts per day you will put out and when you will have them posted.   Remember. you want to engage your audience and appear active, but you don’t want to bombard or spam your fans with unnecessary material either.   Come up with a list of material for a set period of time (ie: the next week or month) and stick to it.   Putting your material into an Excel spreadsheet makes it easy to find and know what you’re going to post on a set day.

2) Consider timed tweets and posts with an application such as Hootsuite – Along with deciding upon a set number of tweets and posts per day, determining when to show them to your audience is equally important.   We’ll go into detail of what times work best in a future blog.    Using an application such as Hootsuite after researching what times are most effective to post will allow you to time your material so it hits your target audience at the best time.

3) Treat each outlet as a separate entity- and select a couple to focus on initially:   The beauty of social media is there are a plethora of different outlets to tap into to build your following and find customers.  You aren’t simply limited to Facebook or Twitter.   The difficulty in this is that what’s appropriate for one channel may not resonate with the audience on another.  For example, LinkedIn focuses solely on building professional relationships, so that article on professional networking might fit better on LinkedIn than it would on Twitter   Do your research on what each medium offers, then select 2 or 3 initially that you can become an expert in.   It makes more sense to use 2 or 3 effectively than to use every medium available and simply post aimlessly, missing your target audience.

4) Provide exemplary customer service –  Using social media provides businesses with a unique opportunity that didn’t exist in the past.   It allows customers to reach out to you in ways other than a phone call or a face to face interaction.    Make your social media outlets your “go to” method for customers to contact you!   Respond to their comments, “like” or “favorite” their posts – let them know you’re there and you are paying attention!  Likewise, set your phone and email up to receive notifications.  This way you can respond to customer service issues or compliments as they are received.  You’ll impress your customers with your speedy responses!

5) Pay attention to your analytics and insights-  They provide you with valuable information as to what’s working and what isn’t.   Are certain posts showing that they are reaching a larger amount of people than others?  Do certain times of day get more views and responses than others? Pay attention to these insights,and adjust your timing and material accordingly to keep your views high.

6) Enlist in professional help –  No one can help you come up with an effective strategy and help you determine what material works better than a professional internet marketing company such as Mr. Pipeline.  Experienced in all of the social media mediums and knowing how to best capitalize on your marketing material online, they can help you come up with a strategy that will best help you build your business.    Coming up with both a long and a short term plan will ensure you that your business will grow organically thanks to your internet marketing efforts.