An Effective Social Media Strategy

As social media becomes mainstream I am repeatedly asked questions from the basic (what is Twitter?) to the more complex (how can I use social media to grow my business?) Since I am a big promoter of the appropriate use of social media, the popularity is a great. However, being an analytical person I am rather frustrated by the many examples of poor use of social media (my humble opinion, of course) and the lack-of quantifiable success metrics. That said, I will use this post to outline some basic questions and concepts that bring to light some of the key mechanics of an effective social media strategy.

First Basic Question – What is Social Media ?

Similar to the Wikipedia definition, Social Media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. Think of how a book is a one to many communication (author speaks to a big audience – no individual customization,) Social Media is the opposite, rather a customizable message that is shared in dialogues (from many to many) allowing everyone the opportunity for input (democratization of the information) thus creating people or social connections around the content.

Most importantly – social media is the effective promotion of transparency and authenticity amongst people and content.

Social media is also refereed to as user-generated content (UGC.)

Social Media and the effectiveness of Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing

I am a big believer in the diminishing effectiveness (and there is alot of data to support this) of traditional outbound marketing strategies (TV, Direct Mail, Radio, Display, etc.) and the paradigm shift to the quantitative effectiveness associated with inbound marketing strategies (SEO, etc.) If you are interested in this concept – check out Hubspot as they have experts on inbound marketing. At a very basic level – there is just too much noise going on and consumers are bombarded at all times with advertising messages. Breaking through the clutter is extremely challenging. I think of how hard it is to communicate with my wife when my three kids are competing for our attention. Think of how hard it is going to be for an advertiser to communicate their message to my wife (the primary spender in my house.) However, if my wife is searching on Google for information about headaches – what a perfect time for Tylenol to connect with her.

Social Media is a key enabler of inbound marketing. It allows the authentic sharing of marketing messages by consumers and companies to other consumers and companies. It lets consumers determine value and share that value as determined uniquely by them. Consumers are no longer forced to believe what marketers say, rather they now can choose to listen to what other consumers have to say about companies and their products. Also companies are now somewhat naked and accountable for what they share with consumer about their products or services. Think of how valuable Tylenol would be to my wife if she read a few great reviews from other migraine sufferers about the effectiveness of their products. Compare that to the potential impact a Tylenol TV or radio advertisement would likely have on my wife.

Is Social Media only something for big media companies?

Definitely not.

I would argue Social Media levels the playing field, thus allowing small businesses an opportunity to compete directly with big companies. I’ve also seen the success first hand by consulting to small businesses with razor-focused SEO strategies that generate scalable inbound organic traffic, turning that into leads, and then converting into lucrative business.

In my experience larger businesses with established processes have a very hard time adjusting to support Social Media. Why?

1) Management views Social Media as a specific tactic, rather than an overall strategic initiative. For a Social Media strategy to be effective it must be blessed, committed to, and sustainably implemented across the organization from the top-down.

2) Social Media is perceived as something only for the Marketing team. Actually, an effective Social Media strategy must be cross functional to include Senior Management, Marketing/PR/Advertising, IT, and Content/Editorial. Each group plays a role and the message to consumers must be consistent.

3) Thinking that this must be something we hand off to our advertising or PR agency to handle as a campaign. Yes, there are agencies that pitch Social Media as a campaign. I think they are dead wrong. Smart agencies are using valuable budget dollars to help companies structure a sustainable Social Media strategy with quantifiable success metrics. They promote a “train-the-trainer” process so marketers can manage the effectiveness on their own, over time.

OK, So What Are The Basic Steps to an Effective Social Media Strategy?

1) Know Your Customer!

- Find out where they spend their time online.
- Find out what their issues are and what they are vocal about.
- Do they need to get segmented based upon specific criteria ?
- What brands to they associate themselves with ?
- And the list goes on…

2) Get Where Your Customers Are! Then Listen.

- Setup shop where they are in scale (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, MySpace, etc.)
- Watch and listen to them
- Once you are established with a presence you can develop a more sophisticated toolset leveraging available technologies (ex. Facebook Connect, OpenSocial, etc.) There are several good examples of companies using Social Media and technology to connect with customers in meaningful and effective ways with quantifiable performance results (Comcast via Twitter, Dunkin Run via iPhone)

3) Create Your Personality and Voice!

- Create your brand, voice, and tone – Super Important.
- Choose seasoned talent (they must know how to speak with customers and know your products and services very well) to be the face of the company and to write content and talk with customers.
- Brand it

* Please, please, please, DO NOT start a Twitter account with your CEO as the brand and have an intern make postings. This is not authentic and your customers will find out and call you out.

- Find a way to engage in relationship building by speaking with customers at their level. Go out of your way to speak with them and solve their problems – trust me it goes a long way.

4) Write, Post, and Respond to Inquiries – Be Consistent!

- Self-explanatory.

- This must be an ongoing and consistent effort to engage customers to understand what meets their needs, makes them happy, and resolves their issues.

- Write a blog. It does so many good things (SEO, brand communication, customer acquisition, etc.)

- Teach them new things about your products and services. Share industry news with them, yet break it down to how that news directly effects them.

5) Listen Listen Listen!

- Self-explanatory.

- The more you know the better you can be at meeting customer needs.

6) Identify Qualitative and Quantitative Performance Metrics!

- Use industry tools and benchmarks to understand how well your efforts are paying off. As with most things on the web – the data is traceable.

- Know where you are today, where you want to be, and test new ways to get you there.

- Create success metrics for yourself so you can measure performance and avoid a moving target.