Social Media on a Shoestring

In order to not become a marketing dinosaur I decided to develop a thoughtful social media strategy for my B2B clients.  This is not an easy task as the benefits are not as readily apparent as in consumer marketing.   In B2B the key decision-maker is likely to be an executive in their company (sometimes the CEO) often in their 40s or 50s.  It is hard to imagine this type of person taking the time to read tweets or Facebook in order to decide what partner they will select to work with in their business. 

And then you have the cost.  Initially my reserach indicated that you would need at least one full-time person to devote to social media to keep up with the inbound and outbound side of things.  I began to discover that you can "try" social media with less of an investment if you have a willing team of participants. First priority is to develop a blog.  This is very important in the ability to move your company up in organic search. But here is where the team comes in.  You need at least 4-6 people who are willing to post once a month.  There is nothing like frequency in blogging.  This will take some time on the part of the team members so sign up people who are willing to commit one hour per month to the project -- and, of course, people who have something interesting to say.  Then find a young staff member who is already participating in social media and have them as the point person on the other vehicles like Twitter and Facebook.

And try to put some "social" in social media.  If you have fun with it people will be more engaged in helping out for the long haul.