“House of Leaves” is a book based on the famous Winchester House in San Jose. Those of you not familiar with the story I highly recommend you Google it or visit the house itself. The house is of particular interest because of the many oddities, i.e. staircases that lead to nowhere, confusing passages, etc. So how do you avoid creating a social media strategy that leads to nowhere?

I’m assuming you have already thought about your goals and objectives for your social media strategy.

Step 1

Select your social media channels. Are you going to use Facebook to market your product? Are you going to upload your videos on Youtube? Are you going to join the global conversation on twitter? Obviously I can’t tell you which social media channels to invest in because it depends on what you are trying to accomplish and who you are trying to reach. Try to remember that if you have a very specific niche market that there are very specific social media channels that cater to niche markets. Check out the web 2.0 directory for the many niche’s.

Step 2

Create quality content. If you are going to succeed in your social media objectives you are going to have to create something of value for your users. Simply uploading a product demo onto Youtube does not constitute quality content. Maybe you offer some behind the scenes footage of how the project was created on youtube, offer a tutorial on how to use the product/features on Youtube, write about the overall marketplace or industry you are in on a blog(e.g. real estate), etc. Create something that provides value and if it’s a video make in unscripted. Maybe you can even offer special promotions via whatever social media channel you choose.

Step 3

Be active in the social media world. This means responding to comments when you get them, this means reaching out to people with similar interests, this means finding other industry related blogs and commenting on them, and this also means proactively engaging in conversations and attending events OFFLINE! Social media is not just about online; make sure you are active offline as well.

Step 4

Connect your social media channels together. This is a huge oversight for many companies and individuals. Don’t just create a Youtube channel or a Twitter account and leave them as independent entities, you have to cross promote them. If you uploaded a video on Youtube share the link on twitter on Facebook. If you write a quality post on your blog share it! All of the social media platforms out there make it very easy to cross promote. If you leave all of your social media channels isolated then you will definitely suffer from the “House of Leaves” with a strategy that goes nowhere. Connect and promote (don’t spam!) wherever applicable.

Step 5

Be creative with your social media strategy. If you run a dogie day care business then take pictures of the dogs playing around and upload them onto flickr, then when the owners come pick the dogs up, let them know where they can find the pics. If you are a movie company, why not create an online film? You can chop it up into pieces and when the first video receives a certain amount of views then you can release the next one. The possibilities are virtually endless but you have to be creative and you have to be clever, don’t be scared to try something new and don’t always try to copy what the competition is doing.

What else would you recommend to avoid the Social Media “House of Leaves?”

Thanks for reading