You know you have to. You’ve dabbled, you’ve posted, maybe even tweeted, but you just aren’t quite sure what to do next or why the heck you are doing it at all. I’m referring of course to your attempts at social media marketing.
You’ve checklisted through the usual setup process:
Facebook page – check.
Twitter account – check.
LinkedIn page – check.
Pinterest page – check.
Google+ page – check.
You’ve probably setup at least few more in your industry too, at least we hope you did.
Now what?
Analyze.
Don’t just throw spaghetti on the wall and hope that it sticks. Use your Google Analytics to understand your user journey and experience.
Google Analytics is powerful and you need it to consult it and study it. Compare the statistics from before you started to the current and then again to next month’s statistics. This is how your should grade your efforts.
Target. 
Who are you trying to reach? Is your niche too broad or too narrow? Does your branding match your audience? Are you speaking the same language as your customers, literally and figuratively? Define who you want to reach and then pretend you are that person and try to market to yourself.
Strategize.
Posting to a Facebook page with 3 likes is like hosting a party with no guests.
Grow your network, your likes/connections/followers/repinners with paid ads or by asking your friends to get you started. Then once you’ve got a few people listening, say smart fun things that will be shared and distributed on your behalf.
Be Creative.
Go about it a different way. Consider utilizing groups, guest posts or places where your target consumer would hang out. Don’t surround yourself with your competition, surround yourself with your customers.
Be Smart.
Don’t be a used car salesman, educate your audience.
Now that you’ve got some attention, even if most of them are your Facebook friends, tell people what you do. Let them in on a few secrets of your trade. Interact with them and make they realize that you know your stuff.
Measure. Re-evaluate. 
What’s working? How many leads are you getting out of your efforts? What efforts deliver results? Now, throw out the non-performing efforts, work the ones that do perform and try a few new ones so that your efforts don’t get stale.
Good job! If you can follow these guidelines and rules to build a successful social media strategy, great. If not, we can help you achieve similar results. We are a Chicago website design firm with skills in social media marketing and online marketing and we can act on behalf of businesses that just don’t have the time to do all of the above.