The first time you made pasta, you didn’t throw cinnamon in with the tomato sauce, right? Well, there’s no need to add every spice in the cupboard to your brand new social media platform. When it comes to Austin digital marketing and especially with social media management, start with the basics and get your recipe just right with with hand crafted, fresh ingredients., and then start to experiment.
Throwing social media spaghetti at the wall does NOT result in a delicious Austin meal.
One of the most common mistakes we see when an Austin company comes to us looking for help with social media management is that they have stretched themselves way too thin by diving headfirst into every social media and Austin digital marketing outlet they can find, with the mistaken impression that they need to have their company represented on all of them. When you count them all, you can participate in an unreal number of social media circles – the obvious ones being of course Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ to name some of the giants.
Simply participating in the media outlets just mentioned means that you have five different social media accounts to manage – and to manage five separate social media accounts effectively means creating five engaging, interesting pieces of content several times per week (if not daily) that not only speak to your audience but actively reinforce your brand identity. That’s upwards of 25-50 pieces of original content and graphics per week. Easier said than done, as our clients learned first hand.
Depending on the industry you find yourself in there may be even more outlets that you are tempted to include in your social media strategy. If you have tons of video, perhaps Vine or YouTube would be an obvious choice. Or maybe your company focuses on networking with other professionals and LinkedIn is the way to go. Or Tumblr. Or SoundCloud. Or Flickr. You get the picture.
Start with bite sized Austin digital marketing
We recommend starting with the ONE or perhaps TWO social media networks that your target audience most likely will be participating in. Not only will it be more effective in terms of marketing impact, it will be easier to create and maintain content because it will feel natural. Think of your initial social media accounts as salt and butter. You can always add basil and garlic down the road… but to build on, you need your dish to be perfectly al dente.
Once you have established a routine and are seeing a solid return on your investment of time, money and creative energy, you can look to add another outlet to your social media repertoire. This steady, deliberate strategy over time using metrics and measurable results is a much more effective approach than throwing digital spaghetti at the wall with a halfhearted presence on a multitude of networks – spreading yourself thin results in poor response and can even make your company look downright bad.
In short – be targeted, be strategic, and most of all – don’t bite off more than you can chew! A job well done on one social media site is better than having five poor quality accounts.
Happy Digital Marketing, Austin!
