There is a question as common and as old as Shakespeare, “to be or not to be”. Whether Will intended this for business or not it can be applied. In all areas of business we find ourselves struggling with where to focus our attention and energy. So in this modern day age the question becomes “to do or not to do”. I understand that this is somewhat of a stretch but the question still remains….how should we spend our time in order to accomplish our business goals?
We can all agree that there is always something that we can be doing. The important thing is to determine what needs to be done and when. You don’t want to feel as though you’ve missed out on an opportunity because you were too busy with something else. In any great strategy plan there is a goal, objectives and then ,of course, the tactics. If your lucky you can hire an intern to do handle all the minuet details while you focus on your business goals. If you don’t have this privilege then phrase your “to do” and align it with your goals. Do they match up? Can you do one without the other? All your tactics should be planned and followed through with in order to reach the intended goal. It’s hard but be careful not to get distracted there is a lot of noise out there.
The argument here is that everything done is done for greater business good. However, make sure you’re not just making excuses to get out of doing the other not so fun tasks. There is always a reason “to do or not to do” something. The key is finding balance with what can be done now and what should be done now. Also, keep your plan in the forefront of your mind as to avoid getting pulled into a million different directions. It’s okay to say no. It’s okay not to do everything that comes your way.
I think it's also best to just think of social media as a shift in marketing/business delevelopment tactics. Hopefully all small businesses are already spending some time and money on marketing/business development in order to sustain and grow their business. So now the idea is to determine whether these new tools will help achieve those objectives better than some existing tools. I say there is a good chance of that.
I also asked Brian Dresher (http://twitter.com/bdresher) of USA Today at a panel presentation how a small business with limited resources gets the most bang for their buck (buck being time) when it comes to social media. His response was very helpful and insightful. He said to not only consider the audience that is using the tool (and be sure they align with your objectives) but also the expectations for the tool. He recommended testing the waters with Twitter first (which is a tool for sending straight text based messages) and can be fairly worthwhile in a one-way format (just pushing out information). Then he said to move on to Facebook because the expectations of the audience rises – now they are looking for photos and videos and more engagement (which takes more time investment to maintain). So I would tell small businesses if they have to pick just one social media tool to start with, pick Twitter and gain experience, then graduate to Facebook. And pick up "Twitter Marketing for Dummies" of course!
Nice post. It's hard to stay focused, especially if you're like me and get a new idea every day, but you come to realize you can't do everything and do it all well. You have to learn how to say no, even to clients. I actually just wrote a blog article about Learning To Say No http://willhardison.com/professional/learn-to-say...