Customizing your Social Media Approach

When you think social media, most individuals or companies will assume if they have a Facebook fan page, Twitter account and maybe even a blog, they'll be A OK when reaching their audience. Wrong! In order to effectively use social media, you need to first identify your goals rather than creating these pages that could end up with little to no interaction.

Focus on your objectives when engaging in conversation with your audience and always keep in mind the brand you want to promote with every post. Whether you are an individual, or posting for a company, it will be beneficial to create a social media policy. This way everyone will be on the same page, and messages will remain clear throughout posts. Create boundaries with your social media interaction, and only participate in conversation if it is appropriate with the objectives you have established.

When you are initiating conversation, don't just push information on your audience. Make your content interesting and engaging to encourage their participation. For companies it is smart to drive traffic back to the main website so that their audience knows where they can get an abundance of information at one place. For individuals that have their own website or blog, they would take the same approach.

After you have started to establish your presence on social media sites, monitor your viewers, who is engaging in conversation, and how often. When you first start out don't bombard your audience with tons of posts, keep it simple and frequent to gradually build up legitimate, credible sources for your followers.

Do you effectively use social media? Which outlets generate the most conversation?