Recently, I have had the opportunity to talk with several moms who are in the process of starting their own business. Like me, they want to be able to create their own hours and work on projects that really inspire them. Even though each of the moms I talked to had different business plans and areas of focus, the one thing that was common among all was the feeling of overwhelm they have when it comes to creating their online presence. Of course, that challenge is not specific to mompreneurs. I think every small-to-midsize business owner feels that same sense each and every day.
One mom asked me pointedly “How Do I Learn All This Stuff?”. That is a great question, and my answer is “You don’t.” It’s not possible to learn and know it all, and as a business owner, you don’t need to. You DO need to have a general sense of what’s going on in the world of social media and marketing, but you do not need to become an expert in all of the specifics. You also DO need to have a clear plan (with the caveat that it will need to be somewhat flexible because things will change as you learn and grow in your business).
So, here are some tips for getting started.
1. Define your target audience. Who will be served by your products and/or services? What are the demographics for your audience, i.e. where do they live, where do they shop, do they work, what are their hobbies/interests, what are the problems they have that you can help to solve?
2. Decide how you want to engage with your customers/potential customers online. Do you want to have an informational website with easy ways to contact you and find you online, e.g. have links to Facebook and Twitter? Do you want to have a blog that you update regularly? Will your blog be your main online presence? If so, how often you do you plan to write for your blog? Do you want to bring on other writers to provide valuable content to your audience?
3. Create a social media marketing plan. Make a list of all of the social networks on which you might want to have a presence. Then, create a priority list for those. Here’s a hint, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the 3 most popular and widely-used social networks, so start there. Remember that there are many tools, e.g. FriendFeed, that allow you to integrate all of your social networks so you can update one and have it update all of them.
4. Learn how to outsource. As I mentioned above, you don’t need to learn and do everything all at once for you business. And, you don’t need to be an expert in all of it either. But, you want to have a general understanding of what’s going on and how you can utilize it so you can decide if you want to hire other people to help. And, having a general idea of what to do can help you to direct those appropriately to help build your online presence. There are many resources out there for hiring freelancers to help you with building your website, writing your blog, building pages on Facebook and Twitter and helping to implement your social media marketing plan. In fact, there are many moms in business who are great in these areas and would love to help.
5. Stay up-to-date on current trends. One of the really great things about the internet today is that you have control over what information you want to receive and how you want receive it. Make sure you are plugging in to the places where you can stay up to date on new technology and marketing trends that can help your business. You don’t have to read or listen to everything every day, but you can certainly glance at articles or headlines to know what’s going on and then delve in further if you’re interested. One thing that I do that helps keep me organized and not so overwhelmed is to find the Facebook Fan pages for the sites and information sources I want to read and become a fan. That way, I get to see all of the updates in my Facebook news feed and I can decide quickly what information I want to learn more about and what information I want to ignore.
Some of the sources I refer to regularly are:
Mashable – www.mashable.com
Social Media Examiner – www.socialmediaexaminer.com
International Social Media Association – www.ismaconnects.org
TechCrunch – www.techcrunch.com
6. Listen to how others are doing it. There are many people who have been successful online and with social media, in particular. Find out what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Listen to interviews, like the interviews we do with Web Savvy Moms. And, don’t be afraid to ask questions. I’ve found that people are happy to share what they’ve learned and to help out so don’t be shy.
Remember, you don’t need to know it all, and you don’t need to feel overwhelmed. Create a plan and start breaking it down into manageable chunks and you will start to see the payoff from your efforts.
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