{"id":868,"date":"2010-10-06T23:02:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T13:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/?p=868"},"modified":"2010-10-06T23:02:16","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T13:02:16","slug":"start-with-the-end-in-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/start-with-the-end-in-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Start with the END in mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/drewmclellan.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d8341bf7cb53ef01348683e0e0970c-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"102724541\" src=\"http:\/\/drewmclellan.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d8341bf7cb53ef01348683e0e0970c-300wi\" alt=\"102724541\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Most of my clients have made this statement , or something similar, at the beginning of our conversation<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We have a small staff and a very finite budget. \u00a0Which would serve us better &#8212; Facebook or Twitter?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m guessing that&#8217;s one of the most common questions on the minds of marketers and business owners today. \u00a0<em>I know I need to jump into the social media waters&#8230;so which end of the pool should I choose?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it is the wrong question. \u00a0Actually, that&#8217;s not quite accurate. \u00a0Sooner or later, it will be the right question. \u00a0But it&#8217;s being asked in the wrong order. \u00a0It&#8217;s not about the tools. \u00a0I&#8217;ts also not about the technology. It&#8217;s about\u00a0the marketing strategy &#8212; just like it was long before any of us knew how to tweet.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s some of the right questions in the right order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What do I need to accomplish with my marketing efforts\/dollars? \u00a0(Goals)<\/li>\n<li>How will I meet those goals? (Overarching strategies)<\/li>\n<li>What do I need to do to successfully execute those strategies? (Tactics) \u00a0This is where the &#8220;would Facebook or Twitter be better for us&#8221; question belongs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Some variations of that question could be:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Should I start my own website, or just update my LinkedIn page?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Should I blog as the CEO, or blog for the company?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s better for <strong>my<\/strong> business &#8211; LinkedIn or Facebook?<\/p>\n<p>Again, this is not about the technology, or the tools. It&#8217;s what you&#8217;d like to achieve. It&#8217;s the message you&#8217;re trying to get across, to the intended audience. Like any other marketing activity, social media, and social networking are tools, which should be tied with results. Maybe the metrics would be different, and client\/twitter follower ratio will not be too encouraging, but there should be <strong><a title=\"Social Media Metrics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/2010\/08\/12\/social-media-metrics-it-aint-what-you-think\/\" target=\"_blank\">some<\/a><\/strong><a title=\"Social Media Metrics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/2010\/08\/12\/social-media-metrics-it-aint-what-you-think\/\" target=\"_blank\"> metrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also quite important to really understand the tools, the language and <a title=\"LinkedIn Etiquette\" href=\"http:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/2010\/03\/26\/linkedin-tip-4-etiquette\/\" target=\"_blank\">etiquette<\/a>, before jumping in the water. As an individual, you can be forgiven for being goofy, but as a company, you&#8217;d better get it right, the first time. A bit of research, and some help from SMEGs (Social Media Experts Group), will put you on the right tracks in no-time.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re reading this, I assume you have a marketing strategy written down somewhere. All you need, is to add a <a title=\"Creating a Social Media Strategy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/2010\/07\/28\/creating-a-social-media-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Social Media chapter<\/a> to it.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Don&#8217;t start in the middle. \u00a0As\u00a0<a title=\"Stephen Covey\" rel=\"homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/stephencovey.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Covey<\/a> has taught us&#8230;start with the end in mind. \u00a0Know what you need to get done&#8230;then decide how to do it<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-small.png\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Social Share Counters\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"google\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"Start with the END in mind\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of my clients have made this statement , or something similar, at the beginning of our conversation We have a small staff and a very finite budget. \u00a0Which would serve us better &#8212; Facebook or Twitter? I&#8217;m guessing that&#8217;s one of the most common questions on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_counters\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-small.png\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-top:2px; float:left;\" alt=\"Social Share Counters\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_c=new Array(\"twitter\",\"facebook_like\",\"facebook_send\",\"google\",\"linkedin\");var hupso_url_c=\"\";var hupso_title_c=\"Start with the END in mind\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/counters.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,26,38,41],"tags":[345,184,198,258,348,286,349],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linkedin","category-network","category-social-media","category-twitter","tag-facebook","tag-linkedin-2","tag-marketing","tag-sales-2-0","tag-social-media","tag-social-networking","tag-twitter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.razchorev.com\/newme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}