Success in social media is kind of like fishing. You should be informed about where the best fishing grounds are. You need to know the best kind of bait to use, and what time of day your fish are active (like at the tide changes). Moreover, you may need to catch bait fish first, to use for catching bigger fish later on. Sometimes you won't catch anything. But always, like any good fisherman knows, you need to plan and be patient.

What you need is a social media strategy. Your social media strategy, part of your overall marketing strategy, assigns tactics to reach your social marketing goals. It answers the who, why, where, what, when, and how questions.

To ensure that your social media efforts are purposeful and goal-oriented, follow these pointers to getting started with your marketing strategy.

1) Establish a marketing calendar. Include both the goals and the specific action items -- like email newsletters, blog posts, workshops, webinars, and social media posts -- that will help you reach your goals. 

2)  Make a list of target companies. This list of target clients, affiliate companies, and business partners will help you to be proactive, rather than reactive, in your social marketing efforts. (more) 

3) Determine what action you want people to take when they see your posts. For example, to keep your brand top of mind, buy products, sign up for your blog or email newsletter, evangelize your brand through sharing, or contact you.

4) Use your analytics to measure success. For example, if your goal is to build awareness, measure duration and depth of website visits. If you want people to share your content, measure shares in Facebook, RTs in Twitter, and email newsletter social shares. (more) 

5) Adopt systems for social media monitoring and tracking. 

Responsiveness is important in social media. Set up notifications of activity on your social sites and calendar reminders when email newsletters or blog posts should be published. Use platforms to automatically share your blog posts in social media. Utilize scheduling features in Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Facebook to schedule posts in advance to maintain cadence.