Contrary to popular belief, social media is not an instant fix solution for every brand under the sun. Social marketing takes time and with that come certain milestones that need to take place prior to the launch of your campaign.

In this article, I will cover seven reasons why your brand might not be ready for social media and what you can do about it. If you’re on the fence about jumping into the game, do a quick assessment based on these reasons and determine whether or not you’re ready for prime time.

1. You don’t have a plan

Believe it or not, social media campaigns take time even before your first 140 characters are ever tweeted. You need to analyze your targeted audience, see what they want and then devise a way to deliver it in a meaningful and engaging way. If you haven’t done the research, you’ll be shooting in the dark. This is probably the number one reason I’ve seen campaigns fail or never reach their potential.

2. You don’t have enough content

Some folks would debate this point, but in my opinion, social media is a second-stage marketing effort. In other words, when you’re just starting a business, it would be best to build up a body of work first and then start promoting that work in your social circles. Of course you should get your profiles set up as soon as possible in order to secure your brand name, but it just makes sense that if you have nothing to talk about, social media will only make that problem worse.

3. You don’t have proper goals

If your social media marketing goals only revolve around getting more likes or follows, then something is wrong. While likes and follows are important, they shouldn’t be the focus of your efforts, but rather a pleasant effect of a job well done. Your real goals should focus on things such as the overall engagement level with specific pieces of content. You want to get people talking about your brand and sharing your brand rather than merely liking and following your brand.

4. You misunderstand the value of social engagement

You can often spot a bad social media campaign by noticing how one-sided it is. In other words, all of the content is coming from one source and being blasted out to the audience. There is no sign of engagement, no questions are being asked and any comments that are received do not even get a response from the brand. This is social media done wrong. In order for your campaign to be successful, you need to understand that the value of social media is not in what you say, but in what others say about what you share and how your react to that in real time.

5. You’re too eager to sell something

This point is simple. Social media is not a direct sales tool. If you try to sell something again and again through a social channel, you’ll get unfollowed or unliked more often than not. It’s okay to ask for the sale down the road, once you’ve built some rapport with your audience, but this takes time. If you’re unsure whether or not you’re acting too much like a salesperson, analyze your content from the perspective of your audience.  Would you want stuff like this showing up in your news feed everyday?

6. You aren’t ready to make the daily commitment

Here I’m talking about the old “set it and forget it” approach to social media. This is where folks set up their profiles and churn out a small amount of content, but then everything slows down or comes to a halt. If I visit your Twitter profile and notice that your last update was from 2009, this doesn’t look good for your brand. Make sure you’re in it for the long haul and can devote the time needed to keep your content fresh and relevant before you begin your campaign.

7. You’re looking for a quick fix

Do you need to make sales and make them quick? Do you need to bring awareness to an issue and you only have a few days? Social media will not solve these problems. There is no quick fix. Social media takes time, effort and darn good content. A lot of this advice ties into the previous point about making a daily commitment. You won’t see results right away. Sometimes this can be discouraging, but if you put in the time, you’ll almost always see positive results after a while, as long as you are delivering something of value to your audience.

I hope you’ve found these points useful as you assess your readiness for social media marketing or reevaluate your existing marketing strategy. As always, feel free to add your own advice in the comments sections below and let me know what you think.

Twitter is filled with spam. We’re all aware of that fact. Yet, there is value in the real-time conversations people are having over there, in between the spam, the affiliate links and the sales pitches.

However, one thing that really irritates me (and many other Twitter users) is the notion of the automated direct message (DM). Sending an automated DM is akin to saying, “Hey, I want you to know I’m listening (but really I’m not).” In other words, it serves no purpose other than to drive a wedge through any potential engagement between you and your new followers.

In my opinion, there is seldom an easier way to get unfollowed than to send an automated direct message, thanking me for following or asking me to “like” your Facebook page or to read your blog. Guess what? If I wanted to do those things, I would do it based on the content you share.

If your tweets are interesting, there’s a good chance I’ll find your Facebook page and check it out. The same goes for your blog. If the title of a blog post catches my eye, I’ll give it a quick read.

After all, that’s the whole premise of Twitter, isn’t it? We’re there to find and share the best content on the web, in real time. I’m not there solely to build a “relationship” with every person I follow; I’m there to see what you have to say and to add to that conversation myself, in a meaningful way that is helpful to others.

So, if I may suggest something to you, let it be this: You are doing no good if you’re automatically sending a direct message to every new follower. That just makes you and your brand look phony and it goes against the very premise of what authentic social media engagement is all about.

Instead of taking the time to set up your automated direct message software and wording your “authentic” welcome message just right, take that time to create great content and share it with your audience. It’ll keep your brand looking authentic and it’ll prevent people like me from unfollowing you at the first sight of yet another spammy DM in my inbox.

If you’ve ever tried to learn social media marketing best practices, you’ve no doubt come across folks who claim to have found the “easy way” to social media success. Well, be aware that there is no easy way when it comes to marketing of any sort. There is only the right way and the wrong way.

Now it might not be as black and white as that, but let me warn you that it is easy to get caught up in all of the marketing hype. You know the hype when you see it. We’re talking about headlines claiming to deliver “500 real Facebook likes every week” or “1000 real Twitter followers per day.”

While you might get the likes and followers if you go that route, you’ll almost always get the garbage that comes along with them. So why then do so many folks fall for these tricks? Well, that has to do with human nature. We want to be able to measure our effort and social media is still not all that measurable.

Also, many of us are still looking at social media as something that can be measured more by quantity than by quality. We say to ourselves, “It is the number of followers and the number of likes we have that matters most.”

In actuality however, the quality of our social media campaign matters far more than these measures of volume. Would you rather have a community of 100 loyal brand ambassadors who constantly speak great things about your offerings, or would you rather have 10,000 fake accounts following you without any human interest in who you are or what you do? Surely I’d take the brand ambassadors any day.

Furthermore, social media is becoming more and more of a measure of our authenticity with each passing day, as we share more of our lives online. In that sense, people are wising up and learning to spot what is real and what is fake. Don’t let your audience label you or your campaign as something fake and robotic. Let your authenticity speak louder than anything else.

So then, how do we accomplish this? How do we make sure our social media campaigns are authentic and true? It isn’t easy, but then again, you should have already known that from the title of this article. Yes, it’s true that there is no easy way.

Your challenge is in producing the best content, on a consistent basis. I’ve said that many times before, but it is the number one thing you could do to  take a mediocre social media campaign and turn it into something in which real people want to rally behind.

But so many folks don’t want to create great content or they argue that they don’t have the time. This is when they break down and start buying likes and followers or start to only share existing content that is not original. Or, worst of all, this is when people turn into the sales machine and use social media as an advertisement bullhorn, spouting an endless stream of sales pitches off of every platform they can find.

Don’t be like them. Don’t take the perceived easy way out, because if you do, you’ll soon learn that it is actually hurting your brand more than it is helping. Instead, begin slowly and deliberately to create great content.

Use text, images, video and audio and share things of value with your audience. They will in turn share it with people they care about and on and on it will go. But it all starts with an authentic message.

Believe me, it’s not easy writing multiple blog articles per week, or making a habit of posting interesting new tweets every single day, but these are the behaviors that separate the mediocre marketers from the great marketers.

Don’t settle for mediocrity just because it is easy. Don’t fall for the latest false promises from the social media “gurus.” Do what you know you should be doing and the rest will all fall into place. Create. Great. Content.

Some social media marketing campaigns just look too much like old-school traditional marketing campaigns and that’s a problem. Overzealous sales pitches have a way of creeping into the picture, which leads to more people clicking that unfollow or unlike or unsubscribe button.

This stems from the fact that many folks (and companies too) are still using social media like they used television advertising in the late 20th century. Sell, sell sell! They’re pushing out a one-way message and hoping someone bites.

Well, you probably know that there is way more to social media than that. In fact, if you are using social media in that manner, you’re only hurting your brand and giving your competition a huge advantage.

The best way to prevent yourself from falling into the “sales pitch mentality” is to achieve top-of-mind awareness among your audience. Wikipedia defines the notion of top-of-mind awareness as, “a marketing term used to describe a brand or specific product being on top of customers’ minds when thinking of a particular industry.”

Furthermore, Pam Lontos remarks, “The only way to get top of mind awareness (to become a household name) is through constant exposure in a variety of publications, not just one big placement.” You can read more of her thoughts on this subject here. As she points out, constant exposure is key. That means you need consistency in your message and in the distribution of your content.

On a related note, one of the best social media marketers in the world, Chris Brogan, introduced the concept of “being there before the sale” in the 2009 book he coauthored with Julian Smith. Brogan speaks about it on his blog as well, saying:

The best way to drive stronger marketing experiences and convert people into customers is to be there long before you need something from people. Sure, it takes longer, but I’ve seen lots of situations where this is what brought in the big sale over another person. If your prospect feels like she knows you, it works really well.

The easiest way to do this is to simply be available to your potential market. Build an online presence by producing great content, whether it be in text form, video form or whatever else. Go onto sites like Quora and LinkedIn and answer questions. Join in the conversation on blog posts that are related to your market. Participate in Twitter chats. Just be helpful.

If you do this enough, you’ll find that sooner or later you’re going to be regarded as an expert in your field and a helpful and accessible expert at that. When your fans and followers need whatever it is you’re offering, guess where they’re going to turn? That’s right; they’ll turn to you because you’ve been on the top of their mind for so long and they know you.

This approach takes time and that’s why some old-school marketers don’t like it; but it simply is the way things are going. Content is the new currency and being there before the sale is the new showroom floor. Get used to it or get used to your competition leaving you in the dust.

Do you agree or disagree? Start getting top-of-mind awareness today by leaving your thoughts in the comments section below. Also, if you found this article helpful, give it a like or share it on Twitter. Thanks for reading!

What does it mean to be authentic? If we look it up in the dictionary, we’ll find definitions such as these:

• “True to one’s own personality, spirit, or character”
• “Conforming to reality and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief”
• “Not false or copied”

This may be simple enough to understand from a theoretical standpoint, but how do we actually translate theory into practice when it comes to creating an authentic social media campaign?

The answers might surprise you. Be yourself. Embrace mistakes. Don’t go for the best production value. Start with what you have. Be consistent with your message. Showcase your passion. Begin now.

In other words, authenticity is unpolished. Let me give you a quick example of what this all means.

Let’s say you’ve been wanting to add video to your social media content strategy. However, you’ve been saying this for months now and you’re waiting until the time is just right to start. Maybe you don’t have the best camera. Maybe you want to wait until you can come up with better ideas for the video content. Maybe you don’t have an ideal location to shoot in. Whatever the case may be, you’re waiting for something.

This scenario happens all the time, especially with social media marketing campaigns. People want to wait until they feel like they’ve mastered everything or they need to wait until they have the latest and greatest technology and equipment.

Guess what? If that’s your approach, you’ll probably be stuck in a holding pattern forever.

Instead, just start now. Sure, you’ll make mistakes. That’s fine and it’ll actually make your content more authentic than if it were perfectly produced. Think back to some of the most successful social media phenomenons of recent years and of all the viral videos you can think of. I bet the majority of them lacked production quality, but they certainly made up for it with authenticity.

Text is quickly becoming a secondary avenue for social sharing. Images are taking its place. Just look at the most popular social phenomenons of recent months. Pinterest now drives more referral traffic to blogs than Twitter. Intsagram is all about images and they just got snapped up by Facebook for $1 billion. Reddit (which is largely image-based) is steadily becoming mainstream. We are clearly headed to a social media culture which is dominated by the visual content rather than written content.

Some pretty smart folks have been hinting at this for a while now, such as marketing evangelist Jeff Bodzewski, who says it like this:

The question is a larger one as it indicates a shift from the proverbial “soundbite culture” to one now driven by a preference for a singular image. The explosion of Pinterest, Instagram and Reddit demonstrates how an increasing number of people – our target of course as marketers – prefer the first piece of new information to be an image until they take the action to learn more by reading. Even a superficial review of Facebook, Google+ and Twitter posts will show consumer engagement is notably higher around images than text-based updates.

To back this up, one only needs to look as far as Facebook and their mysterious EdgeRank algorithm. If you’re not familiar with this, it is the complex methodology Facebook uses to determine what you see in your news feed. You can read more about it here. Anyway, EdgeRank has always placed a higher value on visuals. If you post an image or a video on Facebook, you have a much higher chance of this content being displayed on the news feed than if you only posted text.

The reason for the rise in visuals is somewhat disputed. I believe it (obviously) came about due to the natural progression of technology. First, Internet connections are getting faster, thus making it easier to display images on mobile devices. Second, just about everyone now carries a decent digital camera in their pocket thanks to the smartphone revolution. Lastly, people are getting overloaded with text. With so much content being thrown at us, we’re sick of reading everything all the time.

Just look at the progression of social gaming. A year ago, Words with Friends was the hottest thing on the block. That is largely text-based. Now, everyone I know just happens to be playing Draw Something, which is all about the visual and creative side of things.

So then, now that I’ve outlined my argument for image-based engagement, what can you do to capitalize on this within your social media marketing strategy? It’s simple: Post more images! Of course, moderation and variety is key and you don’t want to focus 100% of your marketing efforts on photos and illustrations, but definitely ramp up your visual output on major platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Also, if you’re not already pinning, get started! While Pinterest might be a fad, the concept that they have unlocked will be around for a while. Take advantage of their unprecedented growth while it’s still hot. The same can be said about Instagram. Share your Instagram photos on Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. It doesn’t take that long to do and the results will surely be worth the effort.

At the end of the day, have fun and remember to always deliver what your audience wants rather than what you think they want. Keep a close eye on your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and see which types of images your fans and followers are responding to. Then, deliver more of that.

Oh, and if you enjoyed this post and found these tips useful, please give us a “like” by clicking the button below. It’s a quick way of saying thanks and it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!

Social media can be overwhelming. Just look at how much the field has changed in the last year alone. A year ago, Pinterest was virtually unheard of, Google+ was still being developed and Instagram wasn’t worth $1 billion. If you’re using all of these channels to promote your brand, while still maintaining your presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you’re probably doing too much.

You really don’t have to do so much in order to see success through your social media marketing efforts. After all, there is only so much time in the day and you probably want to spend the majority of it running your business rather than running your social media campaign.

So heed these words of advice: More is not always better. Just because you’ve taken thirty seconds to fill out a profile on every social network under the sun, you don’t need to be actively involved on all of them. You just can’t be. That would become a full-time job.

So then, if you’ve read this article and found yourself in the situation described above, it’s time to cut back and focus your social media efforts in the places that really matter. How? First, you need to find out where your fans are. Where are you getting the most engagement? Which network offers the best opportunity to connect with your followers? That’s what matters.

Then, focus on those social networks and don’t worry so much about the rest. For example, if you’re only updating your Tumblr page once a month, it probably isn’t helping your brand image anyway. It would be better if your didn’t have a Tumblr presence at all in that case, but that’s just my opinion.

Social media marketing can be as easy or as difficult as you make it. Your effort will definitely determine your level of success, but where you direct your effort absolutely matters. Direct it at just a few social networks and focus on each and every connection you make on those platforms.

You’ll quickly see for yourself that more is not always better. More is just … well, more. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that quality rather than quantity keeps your audience happy, and a happy audience leads to success for you and your brand on and off the interwebs.

Yes, I am aware that the title of this article is not grammatically correct, but I needed to grab your attention. For too long now, social media has been treated by many as a “new form” of traditional media. Well, it’s time to get this notion out of your head.

When the term “social media” was coined many years ago, it was used to describe something so new and revolutionary, that I don’t think anyone really knew what to call it. Was it social? Yes! Was it media? Yes! So let’s call it social media! But, there’s so much more to understanding the function of social media in society.

So if social media isn’t necessarily media, then what is it? It’s a conversation! It’s the biggest and most engaging conversation in the history of human communication.

Do you think this is an overstatement? Did you know that it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users; for  television, it took 13 years; for the Internet, it took only 4 years. Facebook had 50 million users in only 2 years. Now they have almost 900 million users as of this writing. Talk about a revolution!

Anyway, to get back on track, I think it’s clear that something more than just being “media” has driven the speed and scope of social media. Media has traditionally been primarily a one-way method of communicating. You had the creator of the media and the consumer of the media. Does that sound like social media to you? No, of course not.

So what’s different? Social media has transformed what used to be a one-way street into a multi-lane superhighway. The ability to communicate, to interact and to engage with the folks who created or shared the original media has made this possible.

Therefore, social media isn’t really media in the traditional sense. It is communication. Media is a thing. Social media is an activity. It is a method of communication.

Understanding this is extremely important, because it’ll help you get into the proper mindset for your social media marketing campaign. You have to focus on communicating with your audience. To do otherwise, would be to miss out on the most important aspects of social media.

Stay social my friends, and give this article a “like” if you found it useful!

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule (or Pareto principle) before. If not, here’s a quick overview from Wikipedia:

The Pareto principle … states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Guess what? This rule can be used to your advantage within your social media marketing campaign. It is simple, really.

80% of the content you publish or share should pertain to things that really matter to your audience. The other 20% can be about your products and services.

Obviously, these aren’t hard numbers. Just try to keep your self-promotion to a minimum when engaging through social media channels.

Unfortunately, many folks seem to think it is okay to reverse this ratio, or worse yet, post content that is entirely self-centered promotional garbage. That’s the quickest way to an “unfollow” or an “unlike” in my book.

As internet marketing consultant Ryan Adams states:

Some businesses only post sales pitches to their Facebook Fan Page. There is certainly room for sales on Facebook and social media marketing is a great medium for contests and giveaways to increase fan followings. However, you will have the best success if you combine industry news and developments as well. No fan wants to hear a sales pitch from you every day. Keep them interested with a well rounded social media marketing campaign.

Are you still wondering why the 80/20 rule matters? Well, people don’t want to get “sold” when they’re browsing their Twitter and Facebook feeds. To some extent, we’ve all be conditioned to ignore this type of blatant sales content, subconsciously.

So, by ensuring that the majority of your social content is fun, engaging and devoid of an direct sales pitch, you can increase your chances of getting seen amid the rest of the clutter. And that, after all, is the goal. Right?

Yes, I said forget about reputation management. It’s a bold statement for sure, especially since many businesses make it their sole purpose to “manage” your online reputation.

So then, what is this article all about? Well, I want to give you something to think about. I want to share with you my opinion on reputation management and why I think we’re using the wrong term to describe a concept that has been around since before the advent of social media.

What we’re really talking about is situational awareness.

First though, let’s define reputation management for those who might be new to the term. Wikipedia defines it as, “the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop.”

Another online definition explains it as, “actively monitoring the Internet Reputation of an individual, a business, or a brand. Online Reputation Management can suppress negative results by pushing those negative results down further as to decrease their visibility.”

That second definition in particular is interesting, because it talks about suppressing negative results. Well, guess what? Negative results happen. It’s a part of doing business. Not everyone is going to like you and your brand. If you simply try to cover that up, something will look strange and people will start to notice.

So, instead of trying to cover up the negatives, be aware of them and respond accordingly to show that you’re listening, but let your audience define your brand as they see fit. The first instance in which you try to suppress something solely in the interests of “reputation management” is the moment your brand loses authenticity.

Therefore, I propose that we forget about reputation management in the sense that it involves trying to track down and destroy the negative things being said about our brand. Instead, let’s use our situational awareness to be mindful of what people are saying, and then change our actions so that the positives increase and the negatives decrease.

You see, social media cannot make your product, service, brand, business or organization any better or any worse by itself. It merely amplifies your message in a way that was never before possible. If you’re selling widgets and your widgets suck, then social media won’t save you. Make better widgets.

If you’re a tax accountant and you keep overcharging your clients, all the reputation management in the world won’t help you either. First comes business integrity and authenticity. Figure out what your message is and stick to it. Define yourself and your brand. Then, once you have your ducks in a row, use your situational awareness to see how people are responding to that message online and adapt as necessary.

In the end, I hope you get my point; situational awareness is a much better tool that reputation management, or at the very least, it’s a much better way of describing what we’re trying to do. You and I don’t own the message anymore. Get used to that. Social media put that power in the hands of our audience. Therefore, it’s useless to try to control the message.

Instead, be authentic in everything you do, be ethical in your business practices and deliver value to your customers. As Zig Ziglar once remarked, “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.” Live by those words.