Have you been approached to have your Social Media Marketing managed by an outside firm? If not, be prepared. It will happen soon.  Just as every mother’s son fancied himself as a website designer 10 and 15 years ago, today the cost of entry into Social Media Marketing is so low anyone with access to a notebook computer can start their own Social Media Marketing company.  It will be proposed to you that you need to be posting multiple times every day to your Facebook company page and your twitter account. They will tell you you need to continually reinforce your marketing message to grab the attention of your perspective clients.  Their pitch will be so smooth, you’ll have no choice but to accept their offer, and ask them how quickly they can begin.

You’ll have a meeting with your newly hired Social Media Marketing agency where they’ll try to establish your core message(s). From this information they will construct a series of messages that will be uploaded into an automated message delivery service that will blindly go about delivering your message on a predetermined schedule, to anyone willing to follow your page.

We believe that every company should have a Facebook page and that placing some effort into increasing the number of people that “like” your company page and follow your page is worth while.  However, the reality of the internet today is that there is so much information available, your message in many cases will not penetrate to your clients (or prospective clients) unless you really have something of interest to communicate.  Just like there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to create personal marketing messages and post to your own Facebook account, there aren’t  enough hours in the day for the average consumer to take in the wave of information that hits them daily. They are drowned in a flood of messages, many of which have zero value to them. Sooner or later they’ll choose to tune out.

For some businesses social media really can work well.  Businesses that have the regular clientele such as restaurants that offer daily specials find social media can really be a great communication tool.  The key is saying something that your followers will be interested in on a regular basis to keep them listening.

If social media is right for your business you’ll need to build your audience.  There are many ways to do this, and I would suggest that you work as many different angles as possible to gain maximum exposure for your marketing message.  Companies offer some sort of award for following them or”liking” them on Facebook: for example back in 2010 Burger K?ng offereda free whopper to anyone who “liked” them on Facebook.  This may seem a little extreme; however, it was a quick way for them to build up a following and quickly gain penetration for their social media campaign.  Other companies will run a contest for a period of time and  giveaway larger prizes to new Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers. In the last few years it’s very common to see companies giving way Iphones and Ipads in such contests.

To succeed on Facebook you have to offer some real value to your followers.  Social media experts say that you must stop selling and engage your followers. You need to take part in the discussion.