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Lori Osterberg SEO & Social Media Professional

3 Steps To Building An Online Marketing Strategy

Are you using any of today’s hot social networking tools for business? Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the rage right now, but have you ever stopped to think how you’ll use them to build your business?

Just because the news is filled with stories on Twitter doesn’t mean you have to have a Twitter account. Just because they talk about Facebook on your favorite radio show doesn’t mean you have to create your own account. All of these tools can be complete time wasters unless you know exactly why you’ll be using them, and how they will ultimately help your business.

1. Where is your audience?

Start by asking yourself a few questions. Who is my target audience? Where can I find them? Starting up a Facebook account is a great way to reach out to a lot of different people. But if your target audience isn’t on Facebook, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend on your account. You’ll never attract the right audience that wants to do business with you.

You can do a little research to find out where your potential customers are. Ask your current clientele their preferences. Do they use social networking tools? Do they have an interest in using online tools? In some cases you can reach out by being the first in your industry to use online social sites, thus capturing your target audience as they come on board.

Then do a little research. Every social site has a wide variety of ways to search, and groups to join. Are any of the groups already established targeting your ideal customer? If so, you may have a good chance of finding more using this tool.

2. How will you reach them?

Once you find potential social media sites to use, its important to understand how you’ll reach out to your customers. Social sites are about building relationships, not selling. It’s about providing quality content, tips, and information, and answering questions as needs arise.

Every social site has a variety of ways to connect with potential customers, and build on your expertise. Facebook allows you to join groups, post tips to your wall, host events, and even advertise. Twitter allows you to build specialized accounts, and grow your follower list as large as you desire. LinkedIn allows you to ask and answer questions to others in the LinkedIn environment. The key to each of these sites is you are connecting with a potential customer in a manner they prefer.  

3. What are your goals?

Building an online marketing strategy is more than saying, “I’m using Twitter for my business.” It involves knowing what you’re going to accomplish, how long it will take you, and what your results will be when you get there.

• Build my Twitter account to 10,000 followers by June 2010
• Post 10 posts to my account every day
• Create revenue of $2500 per month by December 2010

This provides you with guidelines to use along the way to see if you are meeting your goals. Without the goals, you are simply marketing in the dark, with no way to track your business’s future growth.

So let me ask you a question. If you have social media accounts, what’s your strategy?

If you don’t know, maybe it’s time you did.