Social Media Buzz
You hear it everywhere —if you’re in business, ya gotta be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +………the list seems to get longer every day. And while in principle we agree, we’d rather you didn’t just jump in without having a plan. Why? Because social media marketing is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. It takes stamina.
Even if you took a leap of faith and have already jumped in, if you’re like most small and medium businesses, you may be struggling to keep up with it and / or wondering what value it brings your company. The good news is, you’ve got lots of options available to solve those challenges!
The Upsides & Downsides of Social Media
Unless you’re from another planet, you know that social media offers endless possibilities to engage millions of people with just a click. The benefits of being able to reach so many people so effortlessly are profound—better customer / alliances / partner / vendor / channel relationships, more sales, greater credibility, authority and thought leadership, and best of all — greater innovation across the company because of all the input you can receive.
…the Internet has turned what used to be a controlled one-way message into a real-time dialogue with millions of people. — Danielle Sacks, “The Future of Advertising,” FastCompany, November 17, 2010
But it’s not all rosy. The downsides are there as well, especially for those who don’t understand how to leverage social media or who mistakenly use it inappropriately, unintentionally causing more harm than good—reputation management issues and information overload especially come to mind.
That’s why you need 3 things: defined customer persona(s), a comprehensive social marketing plan and sensible guidelines for engagement.
Customer Personas and Your Plan
You need to have a deep understanding, first, of your customer persona(s). By that we mean having a really clear picture about your average, ideal customer(s) that goes beyond simple demographics. When you understand:
- What needs and emotions drive them
- Where they hang out online
- Whose opinions and advice they value and why they value them
- What their online behavior is like
- What they’re passionate about (both likes and dislikes)
—your social marketing will deliver better and greater results.
A well-crafted customer persona is at the heart of creating the optimum social media marketing plan for your business. This blueprint should show:
- Where you will have a formal company presence and when
- What you’ll use social media for
- How you’ll engage people on the different channels
- Which social media channels to monitor
And all the while, you’ll be seeding specific channels appropriately with your content.
Your social media plan should have clear, specific, measurable, meaningful goals. And by setting up the right tracking and analytics, continuous improvement is no longer guesswork and ROI can be calculated.
Sensible Guidelines
Many business owners fear getting into social media, mostly because it feels like yet one more thing on their plate with dubious returns. Still others fear it because of all the horror stories they’ve heard about this company or that company being sued for something an employee said online.
Without question, those are good things to be concerned about. The way to handle them is neither by sticking your head in the sand nor by tightly restricting how you firm engages in it. Because if you do, you’ll be missing out on how brands and customer loyalty are built and how sales are made, today.
Remember: traditional, outbound marketing is losing its effectiveness, each and every day, because people are blocking those interruption-based tactics. More than 60% of the US population now actively seeks buying advice from social media channels before buying products and services.
We recommend a pragmatic approach that’s based on your company culture and its core values, its brand promise, your customers’ expectations, the resources you’re willing to assign and your goals. When that’s all mixed into the blender, what usually results is:
- A short list of what we term sensible guidelines— “Do’s” and “Don’ts” to guide the interactions
- A staged process that brings on one social media channel at a time until it meets certain criteria before another is added
- Training for the people who will be conversing online
- Regular check-ins and formal analysis and reviews to learn what is and isn’t working
- Internal processes for team members to help each other, e.g. internal wikis or IM systems
- Appropriate escalation paths to decision makers when issues arise
- On-going tweaking of guidelines and processes
