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Focusing your social media strategy to benefit your small business

By Andi Graham on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 2:56 pm

Here are four tenants of social media strategy (you do have a strategy, right?) that help to keep your aim on target. Let's call them the "FAIL method":

F: Focus. Keep your business-related media browsing focused. Ask, “What is my strategy in this space?” and then make sure your posts and updates reflect those objectives. Save your rants and tirades for someplace else. Tell your story but make sure it's related somehow to your business.

A: Alignment. Make sure you social media activity is aligned with your overall brand, your business image and goals. If community activism is important to you in your every day business, show that through your posts. Repost and share information that supports your goals, brand and intentions.

I: Interact. Respond to your fans and friends. Comment on their posts, retweet and reply. Be a part of the community for the sake of it – not just to promote yourself. Stop selling for a while and enjoy the company.

L: Listen. It’s okay to lose control of the conversation. Adapt to what your fans and friends are asking for if it’s not going the way you originally intended. Take their comments to heart and use them to make your business and social media presence stronger. Show that you care by responding to negative comments with solutions and sincerity.

Keep 'FAIL' in mind next time you post, and you’ll find it easier to target your messages and keep your brand on track in the social media space.

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Small business owners spend a lot of time on social media to promote themselves. They do so through Facebook fan pages, Twitter conversations, keeping a blog or posting photos of new products to their Flickr pages. (If you’re not doing these things, you should be. Contact me.)

It’s how you build your tribe, amass your followers and alert your friends.

Though how often do you log on and feel aimless? Feel underwhelmed and lost on what to post, why to post it or where to post?