Web Site Design Specialists

By Sean Carton

Why should you spend your ad dollars on social media?

That might seem like a silly question, given that everyone seems to be shifting ad budgets to hop on the social media bandwagon. But if you aren’t asking it, you’re asking for disaster. And if you can’t answer the question with a comprehensive, strategic answer, you’re wasting your money.

It might sound harsh, but a recent Center for Media Research report has me worried. After surveying more than 1,000 people with media buying or planning responsibilities, the center found that “having a presence on social networks” is one of the top priorities for media plans in 2010.

Why should that worry me? Because I’ve only rarely encountered people with actual strategies behind their social media push. Sure, plenty of clients (and prospects) I’ve spoken to in the past year or so made vague noises about viral video or being on Facebook or tweeting, but when I’ve pressed them for why they want those things, few can give me an answer.

Not that I blame them: it’s tough to read any of the industry press these days without getting the feeling that everyone’s doing social media better than you are. Ad spending on social media sites keeps going up, the buzz is deafening, and just about every company you encounter asks you to follow them on Twitter, read their blog, or become their friend on Facebook. And like any new thing, it’s got the sheen of new on it that’s hard to resist.

But before you spend money on building a social media presence, take a step back. After all, if you’re spending money there, you’re not spending it somewhere else. If you don’t spend money with a strategy, you’re throwing it away.

Here, then, is my 10-step social media strategy checklist. It’s hardly magical stuff; you could probably apply a lot of these questions to just about any advertising or marketing you do. But going through this checklist as you build a social media strategy will help you develop a strategy based on results, not hype. It may be painful, especially if you like new things (Oooh! Shiny!), but when you get real results instead of making excuses, you’ll be glad you did.

1. What are we trying to accomplish? Are you looking for more leads, more direct sales, greater brand awareness, conversions, or brand engagement? Understanding what you’re trying to actually do with your social media presence should be the first step in developing a social media strategy.

 

2. Why social media? Is your audience there? Do you want to build stronger relationships with customers and prospects? Tap into online word-of-mouth channels? Demonstrate that you’re down with the kids? You have a niche audience that’s difficult to reach otherwise? The best way to avoid recklessly jumping on the bandwagon is to examine why the wagon is the best way to get where you’re going before you hop on. Ask yourself: is spending money on social media going to provide better ROI (define) than other forms of advertising you could be spending money on?

 

3. What kind of social media will help us best achieve our goals? Do you need to utilize social networking sites, blogs, real-time updates (e.g., Twitter), social news sites, media-sharing sites, review/directory sites, virtual worlds, or display ads on social media sites? In some respects, talking about a social media presence is like talking about having an advertising presence: you must specify what you’re doing and where you’re going to place it. Examine the characteristics of the type of social media you want to have a presence on and how those characteristics fit what you’re trying to accomplish to help choose the ones that will work best for you.

 

4. Are we prepared to let go of control of our brand, at least a little? You can’t participate in social media without being…well…social. And that means engaging in a conversation with customers. Once you engage in a conversation, you have to give up control. Is your company willing to do that?

 

5. What will we do to encourage participation? There’s nothing more embarrassing than going to a corporate YouTube channel and seeing that the viral video it spent tons of money making has just 127 views. Ditto for going to a company’s Twitter feed and seeing that it has all of 11 followers. What are you planning to do to drive people to your social media presence? And do you have the money to do it?

 

6. Who will maintain our social media presence? Participating in social media takes a lot of work. You must have something to say and you must have someone (or a team of people) to say it on a regular basis. It won’t happen unless it becomes part of someone’s job. Do you have someone ready to commit a big chunk of time to maintaining your social media presence?

 

7. Do we have the resources to keep this up, or will this be a short campaign? Similarly, unless you specify that what you’re doing has a limited duration (such as a Twitter feed based on a particular conference), people will expect you to keep it up. Have you budgeted the resources to continue your social media presence beyond the fiscal year?

 

8. How does engaging users via social media integrate into our overall marketing/communications strategy? None of this stuff exists in a vacuum. It has to be part of a larger marketing/communications strategy. How does social media fit into what you’re trying to do in all your other channels, and how will you use those channels to support each other?

 

9. How do we measure success? What constitutes failure? Are you measuring views, followers, comments, or subscribers? What’s the threshold for your success metrics that takes them into success territory? What happens if you don’t get there?

 

10. What will we do less of if we’re spending resources on social media? Chances are you have limited dollars (if not, could you contact me immediately?). If you spend more money on social media and other nontraditional forms of marketing, you have to spend less on something else. How will your overall goals be impacted by taking money away from other forms of advertising/marketing and moving it into social media?

By Jason Falls

Social media is starting to take hold with brands, companies and organizations everywhere. While there are still stragglers, and it is probably incorrect to say most companies are getting with the program, a good number of them are. What we’re seeing in these organizations is a maturation process. Brands are done testing the waters, playing with the tools and saying, “We Gotta Facebook Page!” like it’s the corporate equivalent of an iPhone or Kindle. Companies are now approaching social media with communications strategies in mind — How can we effectively use these social tools to reach our audiences?

But therein lies the next challenge for those responsible for the social media planning for organizations. Regardless of the pedigree – public relations, corporate communications, marketing, customer service, research, etc. – today’s social media task masters are probably still operating from the traditional corporate mindset or training. First, you define your audience and your goals and objectives. Then you develop talking points to convince that audience to complete the action that fulfills the goals or objectives. Then you measure, report; rinse, repeat.

The problem is that social media is an environment that scoffs at the traditional. Talking points are about as useful in a social media campaign as a nail gun in a balloon store. You’re just gonna piss everybody off.

Corporate messaging — talking points — are precisely why people have turned to online communities and social networks for information about products and services. Social media exists to provide trusted, third party information to consumers looking for something other than a sales pitch. Thus, diving into a social media effort with your talking points in tow is a great strategy if you’re hoping to fail.

The key to developing a social media strategy is not talking points, but parameters of conversation.

Which conversation can you find a way into?

To develop your parameters of conversation for your social media efforts, answer these questions:

• What types of people do we want to talk to?
• Where do we find them?
• What are they talking about already?
• Is it appropriate for us to join that conversation and, if so, when?
• How do we inject usefulness into the conversation without being overly promotional?
• What value can we provide in terms of knowledge, opinion or content?
• How can we earn their trust?
• When we do earn their trust, how can we best ask for their input into our product or service?
• Under what circumstances can we point the conversation toward considering our product?
• Can we say or do something that invites someone else to point the conversation toward considering our product?
• How shall we apologize and regroup if we overstep their comfort level or accuse us of violating their trust?

Many of the answers cannot be had until you assimilate into the communities and conversations. But thinking of these situations ahead of time is no different than anticipating the hard questions from reporters before a press conference. Prepare yourself with answers, then read and react. It’s not the soup-to-nuts of a social media strategy, but the answers to these questions are at the core of successful ones.

Those are my questions. What are yours? What other ideas can we add to this list to help a company round out parameters of conversation for their social media efforts. The comments are yours.