Don't let the Social-ball bounce back and knock your face!

In this day and age, where availing information is becoming unbelievably cheaper, acquiring attention of your intended audience is becoming painfully difficult. Deepening internet penetration is motivating young minds to turn their ideas into actions, by participating in the start-up trend. As a result, you have so many people aiming for the same thing, and that is certainly not a thing to look down about, because we do know how client acquisition through presentation of impressible design, is important not just for the company name to float amongst the retail giants, but also for it to substantially grow.

But, how to get onto the stage of social media, in a way that everybody is aroused with great interest to hear your idea? Surely, not everybody is going to drop by your website just like that. For, as blogger, I do understand that to bring traffic to your blog, you need to either mention that in your work profile and be circulating that quite often (which perhaps, you actually won’t do if you aren't actively looking for a job) or you can tweet or post your latest blog-link and promote each deliberate buzz, organically or otherwise.  Yeah, you do know what I mean by otherwise, don’t you?

So, when I was interviewed for my first internship, I was asked one simple question “Do you understand Social Media and its functionality?” I hopped with excitement and smilingly answered “Yes, of course” and the question which was shot next was “No, I'm not asking whether you are there on social media, I'm asking whether you do know, for example the pitfalls and how to avoid them?” and I was like “Okay, yeah a bit” and somehow strangely they picked me up for my honesty.

But, to make you understand my interviewer’s point, let me put it this way, that not so strangely, promoting your personal blog and promoting your company’s blog or your company’s client’s blog, happen to be three entirely different things. Sadly, a lot of people end-up getting injured by their own social ball throw, for it sometimes bounces back. And, thereby such people lose out the opportunity to actually handshake with people, who could fetch them not just great possibilities of growth and wider recognition, but also the actual good opportunities for wholesome growth in their respective sectors.

So, I gradually allowed myself to learn, through experimentation and experience, how to be cautious of such accidental possibilities and instead, have a better grip.  And for this, I just kept notice of a few things, in particular, especially while addressing people, with the content that I had, at social media like-

Don’t jump-in without a schemed-out strategy:  Social media is an interesting place to kick-off your gig, but you mustn't forget that just like you shouldn't hop-in a corporate party with your pyjamas on, you shouldn't launch your business idea, without having figured out a workable strategy. Because, otherwise, you’d be “doing” social media but your overall efforts would be disjointed and lacking the required direction and focus.

Be consistent, or don’t be there at all: A lot of businesses get-onto Social media networks, quite enthusiastically, but, like air balloons they pop-out of existence too soon. Consistency is very important; you can’t just slide off at the back stage whenever you feel like. Social media is a powerful tool, which must be employed only to speedily promote your big idea, only when you are ready to regularly put in a consistent amount of researched data and observation. People rarely achieve desired success at their first attempt, but after every failure, they actually have double the chances of success, because there’s so much to learn and work-upon. So, don’t go there just for the namesake, go there if you wish to stay and change the game.

Do engage with your followers: There are endless options today for people to navigate to and get informed or entertained, believe me. So, frankly, you just can’t afford to not engage with your followers. Not engaging with followers. And, to do that, social media should not be a ‘one-way street’. To actually be successful and to actually build a following that does matters, you would actually have to be social, actively social. So, assert, that you are concerned, by asking questions and also answering the ones you smartly can.  This would help people understand and accept your existence.

Never, skip-out tracking analytics and KPIs:  If your goal is higher and bigger, then you need to strategize accordingly. You need to be concerned about details, yes, you need to study and observe the analytics to better curate your policy. And, for that you need to treat Social media same as your other marketing activities and properly measure it.  For, it isn't at all wise to assume, that by simply keeping track of the number of fans or followers is an apt enough indication of successful growth. As, Social media channels have matured to the point where there is an increasingly high level of analytics behind them. So, it’s always advised to keep a close eye on your social media analytics, such as Facebook Insights, LinkedIn Page Statistics and Pinterest analytics.

So, work hard, because nothing at all is easy, but work smart, because nothing at all is impossible. And, do keep in consideration these probable Social-ball bounce back angles, or else you might just get badly hurt.