How to Get Started in Social Media - Expert Advice

Sarah Prevette is Founder/CEO of Sprouter.com, an online community specifically built for startup founders. Read the full interview.

"The first step to getting started in social media is to determine your goals. What are you trying to achieve? And who are you trying to connect with? Spend the time to determine where your target audience is spending their time online and who the key influencers are in that community. Listen and learn before engaging. Look to provide value and participate in the conversation."

"Too many businesses see social media as a one way channel to broadcast their message instead of a the valuable two-way communication tool that it is. The inherent value in social media is the facilitation of dialogue."

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Rick Mathieson is an expert on digital marketing and has been featured in ADWEEK, Advertising Age, Wired and is the author of two books. Read the full interview.

"Forget about what you think you know about social media. It’s irrelevant. Find out what your customers are doing in social media, and develop innovative ways to capitalize on it. I do think it helps to at least immerse yourself in social media for your own edification – it’s like someone in marketing saying they don’t watch TV; you can’t have great ideas or connect the dots for your brand if you yourself don’t even know what’s happening in a specific medium. Same with social media. But ultimately, you’ve got to understand your customers. Otherwise you’re just shooting in the dark."

Paul May is CEO and Co-Founder of BuzzStream. Read the full interview.

"Start with a strawman strategy, implement it in a small way, test and iterate. There are so many options that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The best way to get started is to just get started - you don’t have to come up with the grand strategy beforehand. In my view, the key component is testing. For example, if your objective is to drive leads, try different approaches (commenting on posts, blogging, twitter, etc.) and watch your analytics to see how it impacts actual traffic, leads, and conversions. It’s easy to try to do too much too quickly, so take your time and focus your efforts on engaging people that align with your overall strategy."

At just 32 yrs of age, Iain MacDonald already has a resume that rivals business people twice his age. Currently Iain is CEO of Weedle, a social utility that focuses on connecting skills and people. Read the full interview.

"Think about what you want to get from your activity and start with that end in mind. Start simple but do get started, many people only realize the full value of social media after they have started using it. Identify the social media applications that have the greatest potential to deliver real value to your business. What are your business objectives and how can social media deliver on those? Weedle is a unique social media application in that its primary focus is to help you market your skilled services."

François Nadal is CEO and Founder of myERP.com - a cloud-based all-in-one business application.

Social media is a very important trend for small businesses to watch and engage with. Start monitoring what people are saying about your products or services on leading social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. And then, as much as you can, engage in a conversation with them. They are your customers, your future prospects and partners. At myERP.com, we went one step further, and decided to create our own social network or community where small business owners can share their experiences and learn from experts on how to manage their business more effectively.

Peter Connor is a serial entrepreneur. Read the full interview here.

You’ve got to experiment with ideas, build community. With social media your efforts will linger on boards and forms for the life of that publisher.

But like all low-budget marketing you need to apply continuous pressure and this can be hard when you’re building your business. The key advice I’d give to low budget marketers is be aware you’ve got a limited budget, be aware you’ve got limited time. This means you don’t have the ability to create a lot of pressure. So over the weekend focus on a group using just a couple of strategies and apply pressure to only these.