Tracking Your Networking & Social Media
How often are you marketing and how are you marketing? Do you use social media? Do you attend networking events? Do you advertise via print or on TV or radio? Entrepreneurs usually do grassroots marketing but how do you track it and why should you care about the tracking?
Networking
Do you have a networking plan? I focus on in-person networking with both my small business management consulting business, and my real estate investment business. I attend chamber meetings and small meetings that have one person from each area of business in attendance at them. I plan my network marketing between the 1st and 5th of each month and I go to a minimum of one meeting per week. Every month I attend about six meetings and I try a new meeting at least once a month. When I attend these meetings I arrive early or stay late, I make sure I have business cards with me, and after month after month people start to recognize me. That act creates consistency for my brand, it helps me to cultivate the status of expert in my field, and it opens up opportunities for me to be asked to speak. When you're an expert
The tracking of networking for me is the one new meeting per month as well as the 6 meetings I attend on a monthly basis. Check out meetup.com and find a meeting in your area and industry and attend, track that you've gone to the meetings, mark it off on your calendar and at the end of the month review that you've done your plan. For me, at the end of the month
, I look at my plan and my conversion rate. Remember the guy who'd been talking to me at meetings for almost a year? He never converted into becoming a client. I have a strategy session that people attend first for free with me. At the end of the month I count how many business cards I collected and how many meetings I attended and I rank them by how many people of the ones that meet my 'convertible' standards, people who should be my clients, did I secure? Some people's needs you can't or don't meet, but you want to track the people who should convert.
The feedback from that shows you how clear or unclear you are about your product. Reposition your product in a way that excites people.
Social Media
Do you have a social media planned campaign?
I have a social media planner, it has the assets, the things I create, my radio show, my blab talk, blog posts, a mini-coursework, a read of the week. The next section is the social media platform where I distribute the asset. I list which asset goes out onto each social media platform as well as a schedule for each.
Create a schedule; you can plan yours by week but you want to make sure that your social media is being hit on a schedule and that you know what information is going on what platform.
Social media is hard to track, especially for the first six months. But when you start getting in touch with people it's important to track your campaign. Look at your Google analytics and track how many hits and from where your hits are coming when you post something. When I host a meeting I have people raise their hand and tell me where they found out about your business. Write it down and that will tell you which outlets are successful. People don't mind telling you how they found you, and don't forget to ask them if they saw you on more than one medium.
Social Media Community
If you let it, social media can be something you use to simply put information out. Social media is a community and you need to respond, you need to develop a community. On each platform you can post and respond with people who are in your industry or interested in your work. Include in your plan, 'respond', so if you post on Facebook on Wednesday, make sure you include respond on Fridays and go back and respond to people.