There is a lot of talk these days about social media consultants and how they can help our businesses with our marketing messages.

You may have had experts pop up in your life or online, talking about their expertise as a social media consultant, you may have even seen them on a TV interview, talking about the explosion of social media.

What concerns me about this of course, if you can’t afford a social media consultant, is your ability to leverage social media, with the amount of time that you have, in order to get a good result yourself. Is it worth your time? That’s what this article will explore.

Based on my experience with exposure to social media and as a social media expert, I believe there are three main objectives: the first one is; what is the message, as a business, that you want to put out there and how, when you define it clearer, can it have a greater impact?

The second one is; how do you leverage social media in the quickest amount of time possible, to have the greatest impact on your bottom line?

And number three is; how you can use a proven social media conversion system that leverages the connections, to make people more aware of your products and services?

1. Let’s take a minute and talk about number one. What is the message that you want to convey? Many businesses seems to think that a Twitter account and a Facebook account, which you are using to connect with mostly friends and colleagues, is enough.

   Most businesses feel that social media is a good medium to spread the name of your company or what it is you do. If it were you on Facebook connecting with me and your business marketed to me, a business that we were previously unaware of, my perception would be; somebody is trying to leverage our relationship to make money.

   While there is nothing wrong with that, I would not be interested in you just trying to sell me something. There is nothing wrong with creating relationships online, where it gets tricky is; how your message is being received by someone you are trying to build a relationship with?

   To me, a relationship is built on trust, not trying to sell. Your message must be one of value. It has to be a message that when received by your contacts through social media, must be received as one that helps them in some way, and makes them also a little bit curious always helps.

2. Businesses are busy; I own one, I understand what it means to be busy. However, I think if were a responsible social media consultant, that I would want to strategically leverage the amount of time that you do have.

   How do you take a little from this other area and put it into social media? Not having ever had any results before, how do you make that decision? Who do you rely on for the information to do that?

   And, while I call our success in social media exceptional, it is not the only method, it is “A” method. And I encourage you to try it. The method is basically; choosing more than one social media network. You choose dozens.

   And I can hear you saying to yourself, “I thought you are trying to leverage the time that I do have!” I actually am because; there is way to connect with many social networks in a minimum amount of time.

   So, define a message of value and curiosity and use tools online or offline; automated systems that spread your messages quickly, which then get ultimately shared with someone else and if the message is of real value and creates real curiosity it could be spread to thousands.

   If you want to know what those automated systems are and you are in the area of any of our upcoming events, I will show you some of these strategies in person. Click here to view our schedule of upcoming events.

3. What is your ultimate conversion strategy? Connecting with people and creating the perception of value, will in turn create interest. Then, how do you take that interest and mold it into profit?

   I have a system which includes, “I bring you here to this page, help you understand how I did that.”

   You may have come across this article through a social media channel or even Google. Once you’re here, I give you information that helps you make a decision on whether social media is a powerful tool and how can I convert it into possible business and eventually real business as a social media consultant and trainer.

   Well, if you are the one who has finally got to this point in the article, and if you have read most of this article so far, you now need to know this: “there are many people claiming to be social media consultants and there are many people who charge you a lot of money for it.

   A as a small business, whether you have invested five hundred dollars or five thousand dollars in a social media consultant, it is the return on that investment that truly qualifies someone as a social media consultant.

   The whole point of this social media exercise and strategy was to bring you to this point and then give you a message. Social media works; you are seeing it in action right now!

   Click here to get your next preview on how to this yourself.

Paul Tobey
Social Media Consultant