I am occasionally asked about how to get started in social media during the course of my travels. Here I have to assume that you have already followed the guidelines in The Five Steps for Long Term Social Media Success(one of my past columns). I figured I might outline the resources you need to get going, therefore. You’ll need(in no particular order):
1) Some money
Although many of the tools in social media are free, you may want to budget some money for either consulting and/or backend technology which might help you monitor the traffic you get through your web(among other things) and be able to be actionable. How much will depend on what you want to do.
2) Approval from the top
This is probably the most important, as to allocate resources you need an OK from the boss(es). This assumes that you have proved the ROI or the ROO case. What ROI/ROO case you ask?
Here are some things you’ll want to know to prove this case:
• What are the outcomes we want?
• Why are we doing this?
• Why have we selected the method we’ve chosen?
• Why have we chosen the strategy we have?
• What technology will we use and why?
Some particular elements of measurement of results may include:
• Members of a LinkedIn or Facebook group
• Followers on Twitter
• Google ranking for your top 30 key words
• Number of inbound links to your content pages
• Number of average comments per blog post
And the ROI driven ones:
• Amount of revenue generated by new customers
• Number of new customers
3) Good web design
I shouldn’t have to mention that in order to do a first class marketing job, your own website needs to be first class, offering visitors a rich experience. This after all, is likely to be their first impression of you, so make it a good one.
4) The right people on the project
Believe it or not, you can do everything above right and still not do well. If you don’t put the right people who are both knowledgeable about your products, social media savvy and a good communicators, you’ll be hampering yourself. I’ll be controversial and say the younger the person is, the more likely you are to find the right person(or people) here. Next make sure they have the right empowerment from above.
In a perfect world you are trying to expand your influence in your marketplace. To do this you need as many influential people in your ‘network’(the one you are building) to amplify the content you will produce.
According to the authors of the book Groundswell, (Charlene Li and Josh Berner) there are various kind of ‘users’ of content. They are:
• Creators- create content
• Collectors-Tag, RSS and Bookmark
• Critics- review and comment
• Joiners-visit and join networks
• Spectators-read, watch & listen
• Inactives- none of the above
In moving forward with your strategy, you’ll need to have a plan for each one of these groups, to engage, keep happy and eventually convert into regular content consumers and then customers.
In summary what should you do to ensure success?
• Set up an advisory group to help with progress
• Keep making refinements to your plan
• Keep in touch with senior management
• Focus on your objectives
Finally observe the rules of social networking(repeated from The Five Steps to Long Term Social Media Success) which are:
1) you want to connect people(not just to you);
2) you want to know more about your customers, their customers and what they need the marketplace to provide;
3) you need to be in this for the long term;
4) you need to be consistent in your content provision( every day, three days a week, etc.);
5) you have to provide valuable content for free without hope for immediate return;
6) everyone is invited, you might treat certain people in your sphere, but everyone is welcome to join;
7) you have to interact if your audience actually engages with you;
8) you must be authentic in your goals.
Good luck and let me know how you do!
Labels: social media, the event mechanic
