It’s a journey, not a race: 5 questions to keep your social campaign on track

Social media marketing is journey, not a race. When most people start with marketing on the social web, it’s hard not to behave a like a kid with lots of toys. There are hundreds of social media channels that you want to join and you are looking for ways to start a new conversation at every turn. You share, post, tweet, and follow everyone you come across. While this might work in the beginning, it’s definitely not that easy to maintain in the long run.

You want to do it all and be everywhere on the social web, but it’s going to be impossible without burning yourself out in a very short amount of time. What can you do to make sure you can complete your social media marketing strategy without running out of steam? Here are five questions you can ask yourself to put your social media strategy into perspective and keep your social media campaign on track.

What do you want to achieve?

It’s really easy to get lost by analyzing what your competitors are doing. Some may be louder, brighter, and flashier that you are, but it’s ok. Remember what you want to achieve with your social media campaign and why you are doing it. Always stick to your objectives.

Which social media channels are you going to use?

With social media, it can be fun if you put yourself on every social media channel to reach your customers, but it’s unlikely that every channel will be appropriate for what you want to achieve. Monitor where your audience spends their time online and then decide which ones you are going to use. It’s better in the long run to focus only on a few key platforms successfully than going in on all of them half-heartedly.

Are you only adding noise to your network?

This is one of the hardest rules to follow. Not all of the relationships that you build online will be to your advantage. Some will only be one-sided by never giving back. Don’t play the numbers game by only focusing on the number of followers, friends, and connections that you have. If your network is not in line with your business objectives and what you want to achieve, cut them loose and get rid of the noise.

Are you putting in too much effort?

Social media is not a race, but a journey. Whether you are managing someone else’s strategy or your own, it’s very important to remember that if you lose followers because you don’t post new updates every hour, those people weren’t really that loyal from the beginning. It’s better that you have quality relationships with fewer followers than “fake” ones with many.

Are you losing hope?

Not every social media campaign will start as you hope it would. Not every new post and update will generate the responses you’ve hoped to get. That isn’t the end of the world. Experiment and try something new. Make sure your campaign is agile enough that you can chop and change your approach, but still focus on your objectives.

Social media is a journey. If you stick to what you want to achieve, choose the best social media channels to use, cut out the noise, pace yourself, and don’t lose hope too quickly, you will complete your social media journey successfully.