We’re all busy. One of the top complaints from small businesses is they don’t have enough time to do social media and run their business. I think the problem is right there. Being on social media should be part of running your business. You network, right? You help customers out and build relationships in order to increase sales. Guess what? That’s what social media is all about (or should be, if you’re doing it right).
Sometimes we get asked if we can do social media for a client. We certainly can help clients understand which social networks to use and some strategies for using them (including training), but the whole point of social media is that it puts YOU directly in contact with your customers (and potential customers). So, while you may hire a salesperson to help, you’re probably not outsourcing your sales outside of your company. The same goes for social media. In order to capture the true power of it, you have to do it yourself (or at least someone in your company does).
Chris Brogan had a good outline of what to spend your time on if you’re pressed for time. If you have 3 hours to spend time on social media (and this can scale with whatever you can spare), spend 1.5h listening (reading blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.), 0.5h commenting and 1h creating your own content (video, audio, blog, tweets, whatever). Figure out how much time you can spare, and try to divide it up similarly. Even an hour or 30m a day is better than nothing.
How do you find time for social media?
This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.
Vincent Roman says:
Support and customer service tend to be the first front line casualty in any business online, unless you happen to be a direct-to-client product type business. I have seen it so many times in my career where support was almost a running joke and site users something to parody.
As you suggest, social media offers a unique opportunity to engage with existing and potential customers, not just to fix issues, but also to help drives sales. That being said, the business needs to be conscious of the way they present themselves online and it’s easy to come of as too cool, too stiff, too intransigent, and who knows what else.
I suppose, most of all, they just need to realize there is NO harm in present a human face, and that often this can be the quickest route to success with social media.