As an entrepreneur you are always looking for ways to make new contacts, network, gain new clients and increase your profile and reputation within your industry. Social media offers you all of this and more. But how do you go about putting your business out there and how do you correctly position yourself in the social media arena?

It is important is not to just jump in. You might know Facebook and Twitter and blogs but you need to develop a social media strategy before you launch into using all these tools to grow your business. The reason for this is so that you are sure which tools to use and how best to position yourself in the social media arena so that you don’t send out mixed messages that could damage your brand and reputation.

So how do you develop a social media strategy?

1.  Develop goals and objectives for what you want social media to achieve for you. While in the end you might want to increase your company profits by selling more products or services, it is important to understand that social media is more about making contacts and building relationships than about selling. You will want to position yourself as someone who adds value to the social media conversations happening in your industry. This will help build your brand and reputation which will ultimately lead to more sales – but don’t go after the sales initially.

2.  Research which of the social media tools will work best for your company. The list could include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and selected blogs. Find out which forums are most relevant to your industry and identify your target audience.

3.  Begin making connections and building contacts with people in your industry. Subscribe to blogs in your industry and make a list of influencers who are relevant to your business.

4.  Join the conversation by starting to post comments on blogs and forums, answering questions and joining groups. Begin building relationships and follow the influencers in your industry. Also develop your own company pages on the various social media sites that people can subscribe to. Keep these pages up to date and use them to post relevant and helpful information.

5.  Strengthen these relationships overtime, perhaps even by having some face-to-face meetings, attending workshops and other offline forums.

6.  Measure your results which should include improved brand awareness, increased positive feedback about your company, and increased traffic to your website or social media pages.

7.  Make sure you don’t get worn out. Social media is 24/7/365. It is real-time, everywhere, all at once and can be tiring. You could get worn out trying to keep up and maintain your social media presence, but it could also do serious damage to your overall productivity if all you do is spend time on social media. Make sure you don’t let it take over your life and that you give it the time and effort it deserves, without it decreasing your overall productivity and efficiency.

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