How to choose among all those social media platforms? Let your customers choose for you.

Wherever your customers are, that’s where you should be.

That seems so obvious, but the internet is chockablock with companies putting up, say, Facebook pages when their time would be better spent on LinkedIn. Maybe your company should have a presence on both—but the point is that there’s no point going where your customers aren’t. In addition, every social media space lends itself to particular uses, and only some are appropriate for your business.

Remember what Mom said when you told her “Everybody’s doing it.”

Of course you should look at what your competitors are doing in social media. But that doesn’t mean you should mimic their behavior. Only rigorous analysis can reveal what your company should be doing. Our social media team can assess the competitive landscape within the framework of social media, and guide you to where your efforts will do the most good.

Define success first. That way, you’ll recognize it when it happens.

It’s tempting to just dive in. You didn’t “define success” when you started posting vacation photos to Facebook. (If you did, it’s possible you’re the least fun person at the beach.) But the business uses of social media demand an accounting of some kind. Are you hoping to drive customers to your website? That’s measurable. Are you trying to convert them? Again: easily measurable. Brand building is harder to measure but is both possible and desirable.

There’s nothing drearier than a dormant social presence.

If you’re going to do this—by jiminy!—do it. If you haven’t added fresh social content in six months, it just makes everybody sad. The other side of this coin, of course, is that an active presence conveys vitality and encourages return visits. So be sure you have a content production schedule in place and then stick to it. (If you’re not into making schedules or producing content, that’s what we’re here for.)