02.11.2009
Social media marketing online 1
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| Internet Marketing Strategist |
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For those of you have already attempted social media marketing online, and by that I mean you have a company blog, guest/comments on other peoples blogs (like I am here), have tried Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, orkut, Plaxo etc, I say that’s great, well done, you are, almost certainly, already ahead of most of your competitors in the Baltics.
For many companies this is the age of experimentation but experimentation comes with risks.
There are plenty of threats and opportunities.
You could do something badly wrong and it could blow up in your corporate face or simply you could feel that what you are doing is both time-consuming and/or the positive effects seem low in number and seemingly “unmeasurable”.
The questions and points below aim to provoke thought and assist you to focus on some of the key points your company should consider when benchmarking your progress towards operating a coherent and effective strategy for social media marketing online.
* Can and do you track in “actual or near real time” what people are saying about your business, brands, people and industry online? Do you have a dashboard or are feeding all the data into one place?
* Are you really listening to what they are saying and therefore listing and prioritising the issues they care about?
* Have you researched the way your target audience’s live, how they have fun, what motivates them personally and professionally?
* If someone says something bad about you do you step in fast and fix the problem and take steps internally to make sure this/these same problem(s) don’t happen again?
* Do you proactively join in discussions about your business, brands and industry?
* Do follow and participate in ALL the various social media channels your target audiences use?
* You should not hide behind fake or anonymous identities when you do get involved: transparency is a good thing.
* We have written down our policy for social media marketing online and have shared/will share it both with employees and the public.
* Do you just incentivise people to be your friends with special offers etc. e.g. on facebook? Not good. You should want real friends and fans, who can offer the potential for multiple, real, human connections.
* Do you REALLY want to offer your target audiences genuine added value?
* Have you committed enough time and money to create quality content for your audiences?
* Are you aware why people like to share what you say and do online?
* Is it really, really easy for people to share what you say and do online?
* Do you measure, evaluate and tweak your social media marketing programme? How do you measure and evaluate? What goals have you set?
* We have an experienced social media marketing strategist (in-house or agency side) leading our efforts.
* Our PR agency and/or in-house PR are understanding and 100 per cent supportive. They see the value of social media marketing online and want to add value.
* We have people inside our business who live and breathe social media. We listen to and involve them. We recognise our people’s talents.
* Our strategy is not a gimmick, fashion, stunt or simply dictated activity from the boardroom because “we must do something, like our competitors”.
Address all the above issues in the right way and you are well on the way to having a solid foundation for your social media marketing programme.
Some time in the future, I will address social media measurement. It’s one of the toughest and fastest-evolving aspects of this area of our work and companies can be forgiven for not yet knowing what can be tracked and measured online.
Good luck and get out there: Listen, engage, measure, tweak, loop and remember it must come from the heart too, not just the head.