Social Media Management - TIME! The Third Hard Truth

We've been considering the Five Hard Truths about marketing with social media. So far, we've looked at Choosing Social Media Platforms and Issues of Content Generation. Social media management is a moving target with new platforms launching, changing, and exiting—daily. Still, I've noticed that there are some MUSTS about Social Media use for growing your business. Here’s the next on my short, serious, unfiltered, truthful list. If last week’s post about creating content didn't put you off, let’s move on to #3—TIME!!!

 #3. Social Media Takes Time, in buckets. I wish I could tell you that the right combination of strategy and technology would turn Social Media management into a time-sipping kitten of a task. Not going to happen. Strategy is essential for success in Social media, and crafting a solid strategy early on will save you buckets of time that would otherwise be wasted. Technology, particularly third party software, will help you manage the planning, tracking, and managing of Social Media. Still, this stuff takes time to do it well. If you can’t allocate staff time, consider budgeting that will allow you to bring in some hired guns. Five years ago, I used to say that if you can’t afford the time and/or investment, then don’t do it. However, in most businesses today, ignoring social media marketing can have costly consequences. Face the truth. This stuff takes, and deserves, your time. Work within the limits of your budget and personnel and find a way to allocate resources to implement your social media plan. Give up on shortcuts, interns, and sounds-too-good-to-be true solutions. Because, when it comes to social media marketing - Time is not on your side!

That covers the timely truth about Social Media marketing, so now we can turn to the hub, the center, the great CORE of Social Media… next week.