by 
Right now the Social Media Trends and stats are the hot news of the day. People want to know where people will be investing their time and resources with respect to social media marketing, digital marketing and mobile marketing. As I read through these articles, usually the same themes are talked about over and over.
- Get started
- Engage more
- Spend more money on ads
- Develop a plan/strategy
- More content
Here is the ONE thing you need to focus on and look at it from a bigger picture.
Influence – How can you influence others to listen to you, find you and be interested in you and your company.
Once you identify that you want to grwo with respect to influence. Then the work begins.
You need to be an expert (Know your product/service. Be able to explain benefits to clients. Be able to present this information online and offline, (in person)
You need to listen attentively to others (Listen to clients, news, competition, latest trends, new technologies, up and coming technologies, client suggestions/complaints)
You need to get your message out (A mesage that is different than current information out there.) (Select platforms that are conducive to you and your users. Find unique ways to get your message across through pictures, blog posts, updates on social media sites. Keep your message in front of people on a daily basis. )
You need to evaluate your progress and get personal with your data (I am not a fan of the term “big data”) (Collect data and be able to evaluate and it and determine if your message is resonating with your clients and look closely at your day-to-day business data to find correlations between the two.) (The number of likes and plusses is nice if there is a correlation to revenue dollars)
You need to understand you will make mistakes and continue to refine your process (This isn’t fairy dust marketing.) It takes a lot of work. You will make mistakes and you need to learn and react quickly from your mistakes.)
Start working on your influence today and then look back at the end of the year and see if the progress you made fits in well with the trend reports the first part of January.
Good Luck!
Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net“.
