I recently had the pleasure of presenting at Positive Women’s Day for Forward Ladies in Leeds at the end of last month. A fantastic day of professional development courses for the 30+ delegates on the day, covering topics including selling with confidence, managing stress and my social media session.
Stepping in at the last minute to cover the session, the content advertised was mainly based on Twitter. Wanting to obviously give the delegates what they’ve been promised, my session did feature Twitter, however in a 90 mins session it is often challenging to cover Twitter sufficiently, particularly as delegates are often at completely different stages with their social media.
Objectives before platforms
I decided a better use of the time would be to go back to the beginning with social and deliver a session on social media strategy, with a bit of Twitter specific stuff thrown in for good measure! Whatever stage you are at with social media adoption in your business, developing or re-assessing your strategy based on objectives, key messages, audiences and KPIs is essential to continually assess how social media is or isn’t working for you and adapt.
Most delegates had recently started using social media while for others it was a prominent feature of their marketing strategy. Reviewing what your objectives are with social media and understanding how to effectively measure your time and activity are important keys to adapting your strategy where necessary.
It is easy to get caught up with an often seen as demanding area of marketing your business and making sure you’re doing lots of activity on social, when in actual fact your time may be better spent on other areas of marketing to help achieve your business objectives.
Engaging with social at different levels
That was an integral theme to my presentation, encouraging delegates to engage with social media at their own level, whether it be a little or a lot, on just one or four different platforms, for 10 mins or 2 hours a week, time is of the essence for everyone. Social media can eat away at that precious time when it is done without clear direction and strategic activity.
It is important to use the platforms suitable for your objectives and to find the audiences you want to reach in the same way your activity and content is suited for the same. Develop a strategy always with your objectives and your own levels of ability and time in mind, think about what is realistically achievable in your circumstances and where you want to get to, not what you think you should be doing because you think everyone else is.
For some help on where to start in developing your social media strategy, take a look at my presentation from the event. And a big thank you for Forward Ladies for having me as a guest speaker at a fantastic event in Leeds. It was great to meet some like-minded businesswomen in Leeds.
Lucy Goetz Social Media 
Reblogged this on The Voice of Social Media.