The three important guidelines to realistic social media activity
Have you ever been set impossible sales targets?
Every now and then I meet sales people who are fed up with the targets that they have been asked to achieve. The activity levels may be exceedingly high. The expected profit margins may be unrealistic. Or it may simply be that they are being asked to find vast amounts of new work for the presses.
If this is the case, the sales people generally become demotivated. They will soon be looking for new opportunities at other companies. The sales plan won’t be fulfilled.
Some social media targets are just as unrealistic
Is this how your sales or social media targets seem to you?
It is important to have a social media strategy that will fit in with the rest of your job. Sometimes I see recommendations for social media action plans that would take a full working week to implement. Naturally, for a sales person, that is unrealistic.
As a result, the activity levels drop off. The desired results are not achieved. So social media is abandoned altogether. Here are three rules to avoid this.
Social media activity has to be time efficient
You almost certainly have a full time role already. Any social media activity that you undertake has to be fitted into the rest of your job.
In my role I have to be able to find new prospects and successfully sell to them. But I also need to have plenty of time to run training workshops, mentor and consult with clients and attend speaking engagements. I also need to find the time to develop and create my books and online training products.
I therefore need to manage my social media activity very efficiently. I am not able to carry out social media activity every day. Nor am I able to spend large amounts of time on social media when I am in the office.
It’s perfectly possible to carry out the right level of social media activity in just 2 to 3 hours per week. This will still allow you to create an effective social media presence that will create sales.
However, time efficiency on its own does not guarantee that social media will work for everyone. That’s why I have applied my second rule.
Social media has to be simple
I am not a hugely technical person. If something goes wrong with my computer I switch off and switch it on again. If all else fails I use an external IT consultant.
If I had to integrate lots of social media software, or set up complicated systems, I would waste a lot of time. In fact, I would have probably given up on social media in frustration. But social media can be simple. The effectiveness of social media is down to the strategies applied rather than the software used.
There’s also a third rule I apply to my social media activity.
Social media has to be cost effective
It’s easy to spend an awful lot of money on social media systems. Individually, many of the services are inexpensive. However, by the time you have subscribed to a number of services you can suddenly find that you have a hefty monthly bill.
I currently spend no money on my social media systems. Everything I use is a free version. I have managed to gain good results without any charges.
Some people are surprised when they hear my rules.
Is it really possible to get good results with these limitations?
Social media is now my only route to winning new business. This may not be appropriate for you. But you can certainly achieve good social media results whilst still applying these three rules.
Now it’s time for action!
Why not commit to spending 20 minutes a day on social media. You may be surprised at the results that you get.
That’s not an impossible target, is it?
