It had to happen, social media is finally being put through the
wringer like search engine optimisation and link building before
it. Whilst journalists have recently had a field day
prophesising the demise (or at least a threat to the dominance) of
Facebook, businesses are also getting wise to the claims of
social media ninjas in the same way they have got wise to
get-ranked quick search engine marketers and dodgy car salesmen
before them.
All of this can only be a good thing. For a long time, social
media has been surrounded by an enormous amount of hype. What
businesses and public sector bodies want is to employ social media
strategies that generate positive returns and service uptake. The
way to do this is to move your thinking away from the brands to
thinking about social media strategically.
You can start by asking yourself six key questions:
- What are my business objectives?
- Who am I talking with?
- What is my competition doing?
- What are my resources?
- How do I equip my organisation for social media?
- How am I going to measure success?
Once you have these questions answered, then and only then
should you start putting a plan into place which includes choosing
the platforms for execution, be that micro-blogging services like
Twitter, public social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, content
sharing networks like Flickr or Youtube, or more staple tools such
as forums or email marketing.
If this still feels like a step into the unknown, there are
plenty of social media strategists that can help you. Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz
published an excellent post summarising the
expertise you should be looking for from a social media expert.
As you will see, whilst knowledge about social media platforms and
software tools is important, you should also be looking for
intelligent insight into tactics, audience psychology and
measurement techniques and practical ideas around the type of
creative that contributes to successful social media campaigns.
We have already helped a number of our clients dovetail social
media into their integrated campaigns through their web presences.
If you need help with your social media strategy, why not contact us today to discuss how we can
help you? Alternatively, if you want to do it yourself, we also
offer a half day
Social Media Marketing course to give you practical advice and
a toolkit so you can create your own social media strategy. Ninja
suit not required.
Authored by Ian
Cockayne