Sherpas for a journey of best practices for social media marketing?

[groovykarma]

What are early-stage (0-6 months) best practices for social media marketing in a business to business market?  Our customers are professional buyers of electronic components.

We are doing it backwards.

We registered Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a few more.  +5 for initiative.

-5 for not having a social media marketing plan.  -5 for not having someone helping us who really knows how to engage with our audience.

This is also a humble request  to SMM gurus out there who have room for a new client.  I'm looking for our sherpa.

Thanks!

[SlavaRybalka]

Loren,

it's my pleasure. I love SEO and I try to learn from any professional and any problem I meet on my way.

Yesterday, just after our phone talk I signed up for Market Motive's Social Media Optimization course. This will definitely benefit our undertaking.

Thank you again Loren.

-Slava

[MackenzieFogelson]

Hiya! Saw this on SEOmoz’s twitter account. Your enthusiasm and desire to learn more about best practice is marvelous.

Here's my two cents:
My understanding is that you have signed up for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and a few more. It's great that you want to be more social, but sometimes companies get too gung ho about social media and start everything all at once. As you've already realized this is a cart-before-the-horse type situation.

So take a step back. Before everything else, you need to think about what you hope to achieve through your social media. Have defined goals: driving traffic, raising sales, gaining a reputation as an expert in your industry, all of the above.

Then you have to think about the online community you are joining. Who is your audience? What content or information do they want and need? What will attract their attention? Of that, what do you already have to offer?

When you're doing business to business social outreach, you would share content that other businesses find useful, clever, or fun. This includes not only content they'll enjoy personally or professionally, but also things that they can share with their own clients.

Only once you've gathered or brainstormed this information do you start thinking about which social media platforms best fit your needs. Each social media network is useful,  but they each have unique strengths and weaknesses.  Be cognizant of these as you decide how to disseminate which content to which audiences. What you do for Facebook is not what you do for Twitter is not what you do for LinkedIn. Make sure you do your research and that you are aware of the ebb and flow and flavor of your audience as you build a following.

And of course, none of your lovely social efforts matter if no one knows that you're making said lovely social efforts.  Be sure to put your social media buttons on your site.

There's obviously a lot more that goes into this and a social media consultant/strategist can help you work it out. But these are the bones as we see it. They're really not that different than any other kind of marketing: Have goals. Know audience. Stay aware. Eat chocolate. Rinse. Repeat.

[SavvyPanda]

If you have any specific questions you can skype me at: SavvyLuke .  Otherwise our Internet Marketing company has a great "Key Concepts to Internet Marketing and SEO" Free ebook for download here.

This ebook should give you a good understanding on how to integrate social media into your marketing strategy.

[jennita]

I just tweeted this from the SEOmoz account, so we'll see if you get some more responses

[JamesGoldman]

Hi Loren,

1. Social media is much more about the people in your organization rather than the tools, so yes, you are quite likely "doing it backwards."

2. You also want to integrate social with how people interact with your product.  In this case your website.  Right now you have some UX issues with respect to content and communications on your site.

3. A social media strategy and a SEO strategy are related but very different.  That might account for some lack of response here.

There is an email link at the bottom of my about.me page.  Feel free to drop me a line and set up a time to speak further.  http://about.me/james.goldman

[groovykarma]

Hi Slava,

I want to warmly thank you for the productive phone call, the links to social media reading, and the plethora of excellent ideas towards USBid's 90-day Social Media Plan.

It is awesome to connect and gain traction on efforts to engage with our customers.  It's this level of connection that makes SEOMoz community of great value to me.

Without taking away one iota of praise to you, I want to state that I hoped for more social media gurus to respond to this question.

So, I renew my call -- what could I have posted to better engage the interest of additional social media experts?

In closing, I am taking this task seriously.  I set up a Basecamp project (37Signals rocks!) for study and coordinate tasks to reach my SMM goals.  I know you'll be one of my collaborators on this journey.

Other takers to join in on this ride?

[groovykarma]

Hi Slava, I will definitely contact you.  It's all about finding a good fit to help my company implement best practices.  Thanks!

[SlavaRybalka]

Give me a call after 6 pm PST today, I will help you for free. 619-757-7238 Slava or add me in Skype: slavarybalko