In order to create a powerful social media strategy, you can’t just hop on Twitter, open an account and start tweeting. You have to sit down with your corporate team, get full buy-in from everyone and then set your strategy in motion. Just because the doors to social media have been opened to the masses doesn’t make you a social media marketing expert. So let’s take a look at how you can create a great marketing message and then implement it using social media tools.
In the social media world, there are now more options than ever before to begin this process, engage in the process, and provide great follow up to keep the processes moving forward. We’ve put together a list of 5 things that every company should do in order to begin marketing via social media.
1. Get in the Game: It’s no longer an option. Companies from Best Buy and Ernst & Young to your local pizza shop are all engaging in social media strategy. It’s no longer IF you will engage a social media concept or strategy but WHEN and HOW.
2. Be Consistent: The biggest problem we see is that when visiting many corporate Facebook pages, Twitter pages and blogs is that they are never updated. It is not uncommon to see a Facebook page that hasn’t been update in months. The only thing that you are doing is opening yourself for negative criticism which all of your customer base will see.
3. Go To Where Your Audience Is Spending Their Time: When designing your corporate strategy, sit down and really profile your audience and where they are spending their time. Not all of your customers may yet feel comfortable with Facebook or Twitter but wouldn’t have a problem at all with watching a corporate video on YouTube. Maybe you look at an even more conservative approach and make sure that your blog is up to date and that you’re interacting with prospects and customers from comments made. Whatever the decision is, make sure that you are consistent in establishing your brand.
4. Define Your Message: When deciding on your social media strategy, make sure you are really thinking out what you will be saying today and 4 months down the road. You can’t be talking about lawmaker legislation in one blog and then start commenting on the latest Colts wins on Twitter updates. Define your message, and stick with your topic.
5. Design Your Budget and Implement Your Plan: Whether you decide to outsource your social media strategy or do it in-house, there will be costs involved. Even though most sites are “Free”, there is still much to consider and a lot of work to do in order to develop a consistent social media strategy just as there would be to implement any marketing strategy. Look at least 9-12 months down the road to make sure that you have the resources in place to maintain your winning plan.
There’s obviously much more to implementing a successful strategy, but these are 5 good tips get you thinking about how you can take advantage of the social media and the best ways to begin to start a conversation with your prospects via social media.
