Author: Danny Bermant

• Do you have a problem that needs solving?
• Is there something in your professional life you feel you could do better?

Don’t worry, there is someone out there who can help you!

Across the whole spectrum of social media platforms, users are regularly posting tips, blogs and advice on best practice or even examples of how they have succeeded in their profession whether it be in teaching, sales or even solving a DIY problem.

As an example, let’s take one profession, teaching, just to illustrate what’s out there….

On Google+ there are communities similar to your Facebook groups but with groups of people in similar professions to you. Within theses groups you can easily chat about topics of mutual interest. Under education or teaching alone, there are a number of different Google+ communities. One such example is "Google Apps for Education" and discusses new, popular and recommended apps specifically geared towards education and which make learning more fun and relevant to pupils.

1. Are you directing existing and potential clients to your Facebook page or to interact with you on LinkedIn or Twitter? Unless you nofity them, they won’t know you have a social media presence or even where to find it.
2. Are you and your Management team fully on-board and abreast with all your social media activity and messages?  It’s staggering how many CEO’s have no idea what is being tweeted in their name. It does not reflect well on a company if those that work for or run the company are totally unaware of its social media content.

The key to resolving this issue is to create some continuity between your online and offline marketing including what your employees (at all levels) say as representatives of your company.

• Are you thinking about allocating some of your marketing budget and time to social media but are now questioning how you can justify such a decision? 
• Can you actually get or measure a ROI (Return on Investment) with social media? 

It is commonly argued that there is no ROI on social media yet this is not actually true.

Effective social media campaigns do have an impact on your brand and subsequent sales but to measure the impact you need to decide, establish and set up ‘KPIs’ which you can measure your campaign against .
You can decide on a list of ‘Key Performance Indicators’ (KPIs) which best suit your business but below are a few examples of social media relevant KPIs which you may choose to use:

1. How many visitors/followers came from Facebook, Twitter or even LinkedIn to your company’s website?
2. How many of your Facebook posts were shared?
3. How many Twitter users interacted with you?
4. How many people recommended your company or product during topical discussions on LinkedIn?
5. How many people have bought your product/service as a result of seeing one/some of your social media posts or even post which talk about your product/service (posted by other people)?
6. How many blog references are made about your products and how many views have these blogs had?
7. How many product/service reviews appear on social media sites about your product/services including snippets where the main review is on an actual website?

Are you or your company looking to increase your social media presence and are now thinking that some expert help or advice might be just what you need? Do you know how much help or media presence you need? Can you spot the con men from the truly effective social media experts?

To get you started there are 5 key social media expert claims which you should be wary of:

1. “I’m an expert” – The most reliable person to judge whether someone is an expert is the client, not the consultant. Take steps to find out what others think, and how they view these self-claimed experts. Doing simple Google/social media searches can quite often give you some feedback about how people/companies are viewed. If nothing comes up in the searches then you should always ask for the details of a previous client so you can ascertain how effective and knowledgeable the consultant was.