I love launching a company’s social media engagement with prizes, giveaways, and other “incentivizing” goodies. Nothing says instant attention like free stuff people actually want. But unless you’re working with a limitless supply of prizes and giveaways, you’ll need a more comprehensive strategy for the long haul. The long-term strategy begins with the all too important question: “What is our goal?” It’s so obvious I almost didn’t mention it. But experience informs me that your company may be looking to jump on the social media bandwagon to avoid being left behind.
It’s Good to Have Goals
So you want to avoid embarrassment by showing you are a forward thinking company that has the pulse of the people and who integrates leading technologies to engage your customers. That’s a compelling motivation. But you still don’t have a goal. Keep in mind, avoiding embarrassment or profit loss is a motivation, not a goal. Avoiding anything is difficult to measure with tangible metrics. Positive acquisition / addition types of goals are more easily measured – which means you’ll know whether you’ve been successful and how successful.
Social Media Discovery is Key
It’s time to solidify your goals. What’s possible to attain with social media? It’s a valid question, right? It’s hard to commit to a goal before you know if it even falls within the realm of possibility. No one wants to aim so ridiculously high or low that they look foolish when it comes time to evaluate success metrics. This is where a consultant agency can really be worth their weight in gold. There are likely dozens of possible goals, and each goal opens doors to unique approaches to reach them. A strong consultant can listen to who you are, where you’ve been, where you’re going, and talk you through all the possible goals and approaches.
It’s Okay to Experiment within a Framework
I don’t want to discourage you from experimentation. You have to experiment. The social Web is constant change, growth, and fluctuation. Flexibility is a virtue. That means experimentation. Keep experimentation within a framework. That means have an overarching goal that may be a bit more amorphous than the actual tactics you implement.
For example, you know you want to increase sales, but after a serious Discovery Process, you realize that there are still three potential approaches to reach your goal. And the social Web being as unpredictable as it can be, there’s no way to know for sure which approach will knock the ball out of the park. So you experiment. You conduct an elaborate social multivariate test.
The reason we encourage clients to experiment within a framework is because the framework keeps a company from marketing chaos. Experimentation without a framework leads to a mess of noise that cannot be organized, tested, or properly evaluated. Just “trying” this or that and then something else is sloppy. What determines when you stop one test and begin another? How will you compare the two or three ideas? When will you stop testing and stick with a strategy? These are questions you answer the best way possible up front before you conclude Discovery.
Realize that Social Media Marketing is Cyclical
Setting expectations up front is perhaps the most crucial aspect of what we do. A client’s satisfaction hangs in the balance, most often based upon the expectations set from the start. That’s why we’re spending time on this here. This is an unavoidable truth: social media marketing is cyclical. How you visualize this process will largely predict how you walk it out. Approach SMM as a cycle. Select a cycle length, at the end of which you and your provider sit down and thoroughly analyze successes, challenges, changes, and opportunities. Maybe it’s quarterly; maybe it’s annual. But whatever your cycle is, reevaluate your strategy and success repeatedly so that your brand’s image remains nimble and agile and constantly relevant. Relevance is a finicky attribute. The social Web evolves so quickly, you may want to start with quarterly reviews to make sure you aren’t missing out on major SMM developments.
Thorough. Agile. Flexible.
Those are the three attributes I use to describe winning SMM strategies. First, it’s thorough, covering all the bases. Second, it’s cleverly constructed and light on its feet. Third, it is socially aware and adapts to its environment with ease.
What’s Next?
Next is the strategic implementation of your approach. As a side note, the subject of quality content and how you will engage the user in a relevant way deserves its own blog post. Stay tuned.
