have a question?

send us a message

your message:

Submit

One of the number one complaints about social media is that it takes too much time.

Companies considering the leap into the land of blogs and tweets often run screaming into the night after they glimpse the reality of what it takes to launch and maintain a worthwhile social media presence.

I don’t blame them. The onslaught of digital information is overwhelming, but there is hope. The key is in being selective.

We all know that it’s the kiss of branding death to try and be all things to all people.

The same goes for social media engagement. Unless you have a dedicated staff ready to spend all day, every day monitoring every inch of the Web and churning out top-notch content, you need to be choosy about how and where you spend your time.

This isn’t rocket science, you say? You’re right. But it’s amazing how many people - even professionals - fall into the trap of trying to be everywhere, all the time. In this highly competitive market, it’s easy to start making judgments based on the fear of missing out on something.

The 24/7, real-time nature of social media sets businesses running faster and faster on the proverbial hamster wheel. You start by monitoring here and there, then you launch a company blog, set up a facebook fan page, start tweeting, create a professional group on LinkedIn, develop a collaborative community for crowd-sourcing industry-specific solutions, and so on and on and on. Before you know it, running your social media efforts takes nearly as much time as running your core business.

Instead of jumping on every shiny, new wagon recommended by the so-called gurus, take control of your social media journey. Here are six steps for making sure things don’t get out of hand:

1. Strategy first:  You want to make sure the plan is custom-fit to your needs and capabilities as well as the needs of your target audience.

2. Have contingencies: Even the best strategy sometimes goes awry. Your project is going to be a huge success, but - just in case - make sure you are prepared for anything.

3. Roll-out in phases: Get your toes wet before you attempt a backwards triple somersault with a half pike and a twist. Start small and grow your presence in as organic a manner as possible. Listen well, and your audience will tell you what your next step should be.

4. Enable : In the best case scenario, social media becomes part of your company culture, not a specialty that’s handled by a few select members of your marketing department. Deputize people across your business to monitor and engage, but be sure to keep an overall eye on the conversation, watching for consistency and balance.

5. Target,Target,Target: Finally, narrow your focus. Be brutal. Though it’s highly unlikely that your company can stand out everywhere, if you concentrate on a few key areas, there’s a better chance for greater impact. Even if you wind up with a smaller audience, you’ll be able to have a deeper dialog, and it’s the deeper dialog that leads to actual relationships, a perception of leadership, and business deals.

Are you already engaged in social media? How did you get started? What worked for you, and what was an utter failure? What advice would YOU give to a business getting ready to take the plunge?

The

Great analysis from a recent post from Merlin Mann:

1. Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute – even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?
2. Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?
3. Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.
4. Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.
5. Good “non-post” blogs have style and curation. Some of the best blogs use unusual formats, employ only photos and video, or utilize the list format to artistic effect. I regret there are not more blogs that see format as the container for creativity – rather than an excuse to write less or link without context more.
6. Good blogs are unpredictable. Blogs occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.
7. Good blogs make you want to start your own blog. At some point, everyone wants to kill the Buddha and make their own obsessions the focus. This is good. It means you care.
8. Good blogs try. I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there’s the other 98%. They’re still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger tries. That’s why “good” is getting rare.

1. Know Your Audience: you don’t need to know every intimate detail of the blogger, but you should clearly know the blogs audience. Readers can come for various reasons and it is important to understand them all. Figure out what the writer wants and deliver on it. If you don’t hit the nail on the head the first time, then try a different angle in a couple of months.

2. Message Delivery: Research the best methods to send your pitches. Ask the author and by all means don’t be pitchy

3. Embargoes: Many bloggers openly oppose them. As a rule of thumb, get a verbal agreement to the embargo before forwarding any proprietary documents.

4. Timing: Slow days are great days to offer demos and pitch company features. Many bloggers write during off-hours (Friday mornings and Sunday nights) despite the fact that few outreach efforts are pitched during these times. Know when bloggers are looking for stories.

5. Don’t Use a Template: It doesn’t matter how your pitch is formatted as long as it’s interesting. You could string together a thousand buzzwords and get lumped in with your competitors or you could stand apart with a simple paragraph explanation and a link. If you pitch in a voice and style that’s true to you, your passion will come through.

Audience>Objectives>Strategies>Tactics>Measurement

Audience: Who are you trying to reach?, Where do they congregate?, What motivates them? Clearly define demographics, psychographics and life-stream profiles.

Objectives: What your are trying to achieve?. Is it increase awareness?, drive traffic?, gain trial? Defining your desired goals upfront determines everything else. Social media is NOT a “build it and they will come” tool.

Strategies: This step is your action plan for accomplishing your social media objectives(Content creation, community functionality on site, network outreach, etc.)

Tactics: These are the actual initiatives and implementation programs developed from you strategies (UGC efforts, contests, Apps, etc.).

Measurement: The all important ROI metric. Social media brings a wealth of new metrics that correlate to you social media initiatives. Things like topic velocity, continuity, virality and engagement.

Social media is about sharing. Coupons are about shopping. Shopping is an extremely social experience. That is why a major social media topic in may discussions revolve around tips, advice, and sharing purchase information.

Mobile marketing requires that the participant opt in to your offers. Because of this, mobile coupons can deliver the Holy Grail for marketers, targeted prospects and customers that want your information, and revenue generation.

On-demand mobile marketing platforms provide you with low out of pocket costs and speed to market. With little risk, marketers can get their mobile coupon promotions lined up and running. Once you’ve got your strategy and integration into your traditional marketing mapped out, it takes just minutes to setup and run a mobile coupon campaign. With the open rates at 97%, it’s a no brainer to start using mobile coupons for prospecting and retention campaigns.

Major points to consider:

1. Coupon sharing is a major social media activity

2. The SMS marketing message space is relatively spam free and uncluttered resulting in a 97% open rate (83% within the first hour) for messages.

3. Mobile coupons work best when incorporated into your other social marketing programs, include your short code whenever and wherever possible. Also, give your program time to build, and get viral, your first few offers will serve to build your database.

4. Once you’ve got your communities created, consumers or groups react positively to exclusive coupon promotions. For instance, the clothing designer Armani held an exclusive in-store preview for their mobile clientele that had lines out the door and near record receipts.

5. Now is the time to start thinking about how you can incorporate mobile coupons into your marketing objectives. Your competitors are thinking about it or doing it, so don’t be left on the sidelines.

Social Networks offer marketers a new channel to reach targets. As with any marketing effort, social media should be thought of strategically first before tactics are even considered. When thinking social media consider the following:

1. Meets a business objective: First and foremost, any social marketing campaign or activity should match with a business objective, regardless of the tools being used.

2. Encourage Member Interaction: The most successful social networking campaigns and efforts involve the audience.

3. Quickly scale: Social networks are designed for information to quickly move from member to member, so campaigns that lean on these capabilities perform the best. These attributes known as Velocity, Viralness, and Spread are key.

4. Foster self-expression or communication: Members of social networks like to communicate with each other, or self-express. As a result, campaigns should satisfy these needs with the appropriate tools

5. Offer an satisfying User Experience: This encompasses the overall experience of the campaign, the content and navigation items should be where expected, the language familiar to the audience, and overall look and feel of the site appeasing.

6. Provide longer term utility: Successful campaigns have a longer term value, rather than a short term ‘disposble campaign”. These campaigns add value by being a useful application to the members, rather than just quick dose of entertainment.

7. Enhance Value as Community participants: As more people contribute or interact with the campaign, the value is increased. This can be in the form of content that is created by the community, contests, voting, or games.

8. Supports Community Goals: Every community is different, and each has unique goals (from supporting products, to each other, or to just be entertained) the campaign focus should therefore meet the needs of the community, before the needs of the marketer.

Twitter

Why Us

We help companies understand the influence and impact of social media on business and provide them with the tools, strategic thinking and capabilities necessary to act upon that learning.

more reasons

Our Clients

complete list

Categories

• B2B (1)
• CPG (6)
• Engagement (18)
• Innovation (10)
• Insight (4)
• Metrics (4)
• Monitoring/Tracking (3)
• Retail (2)
• Social Media Optimization (11)
• Social Media Strategy (15)
• Strategy (2)
• Twitter (48)
• Uncategorized (5)
• Videos (4)
• Web 2.0 Explained (9)

Archives

• September 2010
• August 2010
• July 2010
• June 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008