There is no set template or formula to creating a social media strategy; the correct approach depends very much on the products and services sold by your company, as well as your objectives. With this in mind, our Paul Mah cut straight to the common denominators — the truths about social media. For more on how to make the effort meet your company’s objectives, check out Paul’s accompanying blog, Propel Your SMB Forward Using Social Media.
Also be sure to check out pointers from Burson-Marsteller on how to accomplish one of Paul’s bylaws, Monitor You Success.
Click through for Paul’s seven truths of how social media can work for your business.
There is a lot of misconception on this aspect of social media. Many businesses plunged right into social media with the erroneous mentality that it is free. While it is true that all the main social networking sites are free, such thinking is wrong, and is similar to the mistake of viewing open source as not costing anything. First of all, properly executing a social media strategy takes time. And you know what they say: Time is money. It also makes sense, in some cases, to support your social media plan with contests, giveaways and perhaps follow-up events. A parallel to an unsupported social media initiative is like installing an open source CMS and SQL Server and then expecting a working company-wide system to materialize.
Another common mistake in approaching social media is treating it as yet another advertising platform, much like throwing leaflets into letterboxes, or buying ad space in magazines or newspapers. SMBs must be cognizant of participating in the ‘social’ aspect of social media, which entails genuinely helping or benefiting participants. This might entail posting tips, or following up genuine questions with useful responses. Ever tried talking to someone who is distracted by the TV or trying to read the papers? Much as you acutely feel that lack of attention, people will quickly sense if your social media participation isn’t genuine — and they will be quickly turned off.
The conventional paradigm of funneling everything through a senior manager, corporate PR, then the legal department, is dead, or will be very soon. In order to fully embrace the world of social media, it is now time to throw open the floodgates (or blogs) for engineers or project managers to directly communicate with the masses. People are tired of hearing politically correct PR statements or more press releases; but will show up en masse to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Look, Google has done it, and so has Microsoft, even Symantec. So why shouldn’t you?
Social media isn’t simply about setting up an account and hoping that people will automatically or magically join or follow you. A clear strategy is required. A good plan will involve all the major social networking sites. The best plan will attempt to cross-cultivate participants across the various networks.
Remember when you were younger and disagreements were sometimes solved by who could repeat their version of the truth more times and loudly enough? Annoying, huh? There are businesses that constantly flood their social networking channels with repetitive marketing messages or reminders of ongoing contests or events. Avoid flooding social networks this way, or you’ll quickly risk losing the user base that you’ve worked so hard to build.
This might seem somewhat counterintuitive, especially since these ‘other related blogs’ typically may be those run by competitors. Discretion should be exercised, of course. I wouldn’t post on McAfee’s blog if I were with Symantec, for example. However, it should be noted that users with a particular interest or profession tend to visit blogs with a similar focus. So if you’re running a business dealing with camera equipment, it might be a good idea to link up with sites that cater to the needs of camera enthusiasts, or those offering supporting services.
Managerial wisdom says that what that doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done. And it isn’t as difficult to gauge the success of one’s social networking initiatives as you might think. Ways of monitoring progress in the social sphere range from the number of comments or replies, new Twitter followers for the month, number of incoming links, pageviews, or the Google page rank score-just to name a few. Set up a list of criteria for how you want to measure your social media success from the get-go, and keep monitoring it. With judicious application and perseverance, I’m certain that you’ll see yourself succeeding soon.
