Great! You’ve got a social media goal, now what? The next step is the “HOW”. How will you get there?
The social media goal article I wrote was published at social media today (thank you guys), and Kirstin wrote a comment asking if I could give some examples on how to reach her goal. There are no methods that can help every strategy since we all have different goals. That was one reason why I did not go into much detail. However the next step after setting up a measurable goal is to do some research.
Research research research
Research gives you a rough idea on how others are doing it and how you can replicate or improve their methods. What should you research? That depends on your goals. What I would do is:
Check how others are doing it:
- bloggers
- competitors
- friends
- influential users
- people in your industry
Read relevant articles:
- how-to articles
- tips articles
- case studies
Learn necessary skill needed:
- write killer headlines
- seo
- social networking
- ways to tweet
Tools
- See which social networking tools competitors are using
- What tools are bloggers uisng? SEO tools?
- What tools are your customers using?
If your goal is to get attention from other bloggers, you could:
Check how others are doing it:
- Check how other bloggers are engaging on Twitter
- Try to see how influential bloggers engage on twitter or engage with other bloggers on their blogs.
- Whether it’s sending tweets to other bloggers, commenting on their blogs
- Writing about other bloggers on their blog,
- Writing an article about top 50 influential bloggers to get the top influential bloggers attention
- Coming up with weekly round ups of their favorite blog post to show appreciation to other people’s blog post.
Read relevant articles: Read relevant how-to articles such as tips on getting attention from other bloggers, strategies which they use to connect with other blogger such as spending 30 minutes each day commenting on other blogs, spending time to comment at least 5-10 blogs a day, or perhaps guest posting?
Learn necessary skill needed: Other than engaging and adding value, I don’t think there is need for a skill here.
Tools: Usually most bloggers are using the top social networking sites like twitter, facebook and linkedin as well as their blogs. Look for them. See where are they concentrating most of time on.
- Blogs
These are just examples that are on the top of my head, feel free to improve or add what you feel could help. Research is important as it gives you a brief idea rather than trying to reinvent the wheel again.
After your research, next would be formulating a plan or a strategy.
Hi Aaron, great follow up post to the previous one. I really enjoyed getting some advice. I mostly working on getting the necessary skills right now. But I so enjoy being ‘on the way’ too, which is already part of my goal.
Keep up your genuine style Aaron, it helps me a great deal. 🙂
Nice one Aaron. Very simple and straightforward!
Agreed! See how others do it, maybe give it a spin — to make it your own, and give it a shot. The hardest part is taking the first step — writing the goals! Great Post my friend. – Gary
Hey Aaron! Good reminder that you need to have a strategy in place to reach your social media goals. Too many people think ‘I want X’ for their blog, but don’t think about how they will actually accomplish this.
Hello Mack,
Thank you for dropping by, looks like comment on your blog worked! YAY!
I agree, not many have the strategy, hopefully be covering more of this soon 🙂
Thanks Gary, often a lot of people forget the researching part, they just come up with a plan or strategy or try to reinvent the wheel, sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn’t.
Get the goal written my friend.
Thanks, I am trying to keep the post short and straight forward 🙂
Hello Leon,
Thank you, there will be another follow up after this too. How is yours working for you? Great job on the goal setting, love the photo. Be sure to stick them up in front of you man. Cheers!
Thank you For the post its very intresting