Have you created your 2012 marketing plan yet? Do you know some of the specific steps and strategies that you are going to implement this year to achieve your goals?
And where is social media fitting into the picture? 
In the last week, I have had three highly respected business owners ask me about creating a social media strategy. And my response is simple: social media is a tool, not a strategy.
“What do you mean?” they said.
What I mean is simple, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and a boatload of other platforms have the potential to garner new visitors to your ideas and even convert the viewers into raving fans and customers.
So if social media can do all that, then why isn’t it considered a strategy?
Social media is what you do to help you achieve the results that you want in your business. You want more visibility for your business online? You want more attendees at your next event? You want to be able to quickly shift complaints into testimonials? Then social media can help you do all these things and more.
It is a tool that can help you achieve:
- Online visibility
- List building
- Increased credibility (and even instant credibility)
- More speaking opportunities
- More qualified web traffic to your site
- Search Engine results (have you “googled” yourself lately?)
- Networking
- Promotional partners to help you sell your services
- Joint venture partners to help you build your business
- Build a team to help you grow your business
- Customer support
- Increased publicity & recognition
- And so many more results!
So if you have speaking, networking, SEO and advertising as your top strategies for your marketing plan, social media can help you get better results in each of these. Is this starting to make sense?
Now that you have a new awareness and understanding of social media, how are you going to use it to achieve your goals in 2012? Please post a comment below.