Business Success vs Social Media Stardom… Which Do You Choose?

There is no doubt that implementing a social media strategy can be overwhelming. In spite of your best efforts and best intentions, you often find you get hung up on the day-to-day tasks of creating content, replying to questions and comments from your fans and interacting with others in your niche. Before you know it, you’ve spent a couple of hours or more on social media, if you’re lucky.

To be blunt, social media is, for the most part, one gigantic time suck and can wreak havoc on your business if gone unchecked. Spending time on social media is appropriate if you’re using it properly to build relationships. However, if it’s stealing time from growing your business, you might need to consider automating some of the social media tasks or get some help.

Two options we’ll discuss in this article are:

• Tools or services available to semi-automate social media.
• How to find a qualified social media assistant to help build your social presence.

Let’s check out these options to see which is right for you.

Automation Tools for Social Media

If you do a quick search on Google you’ll find websites specifically created to help individuals manage social media accounts more efficiently. Why? Because they save time.

• They allow you to automatically share blog posts.
• They allow you to schedule posts in advance.
• They allow you to manage your social accounts from one location.

This may not seem like much, but when it comes to saving time performing routine tasks, it is a big deal.

Total Automation is Not the Solution

The first rule of social media is you have to show up!

While automation has its advantages, understand that it’s suicide to try to automate every task. If you want social media to work for you, then you need to be social. You need to login daily, respond to comments, build trust, build credibility, and build relationships. Don’t forget this as you begin to automate certain tasks.

Start With Your Blog

You could start by adding social sharing buttons to your blog since you want to encourage your visitors to share content they enjoy or find interesting. Adding social sharing buttons will make it easy for your readers to “like”, “tweet” and “share” your content thereby increasing your exposure to a new audience without any additional effort on your part!

There are plugins on the market that will add these buttons to your blog once installed and set up, and there are bookmarking services you can look into as well.

Social Media Management Services

Things really start to heat up when you use services that allow you to automatically post to your social medial accounts on a pre-set schedule.

Two very popular social media management sites you can look into are:

HootSuite: Free plan includes 1 social profile on 3 key social networks of your choosing. Go to https://hootsuite.com for more information.

Buffer: Free plan includes 1 social profile for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Go to http://www.bufferapp.com for more information.

Once you’ve selected a service, you need to decide when to create and schedule your content. For instance, on Friday you could create and upload your content to the service for future publication. When you get this out of the way, you can plan other business tasks you need to address the coming week.

Then you would login daily to check on your accounts and engage with others. Be sure to set a time limit for your social activities and stick to the plan. Otherwise it will eat up hours before you know it.

How to Find the Right Expert for Your Business

There is no shortage of individuals ready, willing, and able to take over your social media duties. Let’s face it, you can’t be everywhere at once and still keep your business going. Eventually, you should consider hiring a social media assistant to get the ball rolling. So the question becomes, how do you choose the right one?

Do Some Research

To begin with, ask colleagues for recommendations. Do they use a social media assistant to handle the day to day tasks? If so, ask them how they benefit from the service and if they’re pleased with the results. Then ask for contact information.

If you don’t get a personal referral, a search on Google or LinkedIn should give you some names. When you compile a list of candidates, you should take some time to check their “references” before you contact them personally just as you would with any perspective employee for your business or any freelancer you consider for a major project.

Read testimonials

Review testimonials on your candidate’s website. If they sound like legitimate testimonials, contact the people who provided the testimonials. They would most certainly provide their name and website address.

Pass on a perspective candidate who publishes “testimonials” submitted for their service that include only a partial name and no website. Don’t waste your time.

Follow up with these clients

Happy customers are usually more than willing to further explain why they are satisfied with the service they are paying for. Then visit their social media pages.

Interview your candidates

Even though your initial contact will be by email, you also want to speak to them. This will let you experience first-hand their communication skills as well as get a feel for their personality.

Clearly define the scope of work

The devil is in the details so be specific. Make sure you are clear on your objectives and discuss what services they provide to meet your needs. Some will work to increase traffic while others will ensure your social media accounts remain active. Then there are those who offer a “full service campaign” designed specifically for your business. Ask if they offer a guarantee and find out if they require a contract.

Visit their social media pages

See how your candidate interacts with others who engage with them. Check the activity on their social media accounts. This should give you an idea if they can deliver what they say.

While in the interview phase, be skeptical of outrageous and unreasonable promises. Keep in mind the old adage, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” If you hear promises that sound totally unbelievable and unrealistic, move on to the next candidate on your list.

Whoever you hire takes on the role of your Public Relations Director! Make sure they have a plan to bring awareness to your business… to bring it from obscurity into the light.

Conclusion

The option you choose largely depends on your budget and your needs. Many business owners ultimately use both; either when it’s clear a lack of social media presence becomes a detriment to their business, or to manage accounts once their social media star starts to take off.

Now you have some options to consider and try for yourself. You want to make sure you can adequately balance your social media and run your business at the same time. Neither of these should suffer because of time constraints. You don’t have to sacrifice your business to the social media monster… you can enjoy the best of both worlds!