By Patrick McFadden

Are you struggling with effectively using social media? Many times it’s because you can’t decide where to start, you aren’t sure how to put the pieces together, or you can’t stay motivated and focused. You are capable of doing the things that are required for using social media effectively, but the real question is:  Will you?

This post has the answer. It’s the Panadol to your problem. (If you have a brick-and-mortar business please go here.)

1. A Stage. This is a digital property you own and control. It is where your loyal listeners, clients, and readers come together. It can be as simple as a podcast, newsletter, forum, blog or as complex as a self-hosted community. No matter what it is, it’s where you direct all internet traffic. Why? Because this is the place where you can best sell your ideas, services or products. You control the microphone and decide who has backstage access.

Only after you have built a stage can you move onto part 2. Which are Arenas.

2. Arenas. These are places you don’t own, but where you have a registered profile. In other words, these enclosed spaces are designed to showcase your writing, musical, audio or art works. You engage in conversations with the spectators who congregate there. Examples would include Manta, YouTube, Pintrest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even other blogs you follow. You generally need a “authorization” (verified credentials) granted by the site owner to maintain residency or take part in conversations.

Next is the last part of a powerful and proven social media strategy, the Box Offices.

3. Box Offices. These are places you don’t own nor have a regular presence. Instead, you simply listen into conversations about you, your cause, your company, your stakeholders or topics that interest you. Box offices can measure in terms of the number of people who see it and the amount of noise and engagement by social media shares, retweets, comments, likes etc. For example, I have search columns in HootSuite that check mentions of both my name and my company. I also have Google Alerts that monitor the same information wherever it may occur on the Web and I also use search.twitter.com.

Question: Does this strategy help? Do you already have your own strategy that’s effective?

About the Author: Patrick McFadden is Cause and Effective’s Marketing Advisor and is the author of Indispensable Marketing Blog. You can also follow him on Twitter.