Conversations about your industry concerning buying decisions are taking place regularly within social media spaces. In order to have an influence over these conversations you need to be active within social media.
However, in order to make an impact, you need to ensure that your voice within these spaces is one that represents value, respect and trust. Many marketers have taken a bold step in entering social media, only to receive a backlash from a community. Others have given up on social media outposts that have already been set up because they have not delivered immediate results.
The following guidelines will assist those already operating in these spaces and help those considering getting their hands dirty:
1. Beware of a lack of understanding
If you have not done so already, educate yourself on the seismic shifts in communication when it comes to ‘mass broadcast’ versus ‘conversation’. Read case studies to help understand what has worked.
Marketers who want to use social media must be part of social media. You need to be out there commenting on blogs; contributing to communities and using social media outposts such as Twitter and LinkedIn.You cannot execute successful campaigns if you do not understand the platforms you are using.
2. Develop a social media strategy
It goes without saying that your organisation should have a social media strategy. This should be a company-wide strategy with all business units contributing.
A well-designed social media strategy can be used as a roadmap for your organisation. At the same time, the strategy will be used to benchmark tactics against objectives showing results and return on investment.
The most important element of the strategy is listening to the conversation. By listening you are able to understand where the conversation is taking place and what challenges your clients and prospects face. Then you can produce content and start a dialogue.
Most importantly, the process of listening enables you to understand the marketplace and competitor movements.
3. Be open and honest
Social media is all about open and honest communication. This means you need to be transparent in everything you do. Instead of building a wall, come forward and admit mistakes, learn from the experience and move on, ensuring that transparency becomes a corporate objective throughout the entire organisation.
Social media has the habit of finding skeletons in closets so honesty from the outset will earn you respect in the long-term.
If you have corporate social media outposts – for example Twitter and blogs – then look to communicate who is behind them so you give clients and prospects a face and a name to communicate with. Ideally, CEOs should contribute guest blog posts and staff members should be involved in the conversation.
4. Avoid short-term engagement
Forget the quick-win scenario; with social media you are in it for the long-term. Your social media strategy will help map out forthcoming activity and include campaign activity to maintain the engagement.
If you have social media outposts that are left out-of-date then it allows your competitors to move in. Revisit your strategy regularly and plan activity that will create dialogue. This dialogue can comprise of individual short campaigns, but they must all link into one another to form one large consistent campaign. The benefits of investing in long-term engagement should not be underestimated.
5. Poor creative = poor engagement
If you are struggling for ideas on how to maintain long-term engagement then you need to look at investing in and creating social currency that will kick-start the conversation and continue the engagement. Engaging content is essential to support word-of-mouth activity. An example would be to invest in research that can be produced as a white paper and offered to the community. Similarly, branded entertainment can create social currency.
It is important to note that social media is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach. Every company and industry will be different in terms of strategies and tactics, but the underlying principles are the same. What is consistent, however, is the time and effort required for planning a social media strategy and campaigns and this should not be underestimated.