by David Bookout
A friend and colleague recently sent out a message that they had made a career change to an up and coming company in a hot sector. So, I visited the company's website and in quick review saw that the company didn't have a clear Social Media Strategy. So, I sent a short email to my friend to inquire and received a quick, unexpected reply - "We have a social media focus and strategy. Our Director of Marketing is out of that world." - that got me thinking about what I may have missed. A few more eMails in the exchange produced the name of the director and a suggestion to search one of the most popular Social Media sites for a recent campaign, the note went on to say "That is a rather innovative use of social media that he came up with.", which intrigued me even more. Now that I had some specifics, I searched four of the top Social Media sites and found just the use of the director's name and a small range of connections. In each instance there just wasn't enough evidence to lead me to believe that the company had either an effective focus or an effective strategy. In contrast, the individual was on the map, but I kept thinking "what's wrong with this picture ?"...
Brand is the key and companies delving into this new space should be much more brand aware when it comes to what they're doing. Here are two top level things to consider:
First, what brand are you building ? Care should be taken to determine if it is the company brand, the product / service brand, or the personal brand of the individual running the campaign, and the inter relation of each.
From this perspective you will get some clarity on the Social Media Venues and Account Names that you will need, as well as a linking strategy for the different sites you will be using for the campaign.
Second, what is success ? Stakeholder(s) should discuss and design the specifics of the stage they are in ( building awareness, generating interest, facilitating trial sales, or driving recurrent transactions ) and most importantly define the key metrics that they will use to tweak the campaign to ultimate success.
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The "Social Media Landscape" image may be © Copyright to Fred Cavazza
David
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4 comments:
Hi, David:
Have had this conversation many times with other bloggers. More under the guise of "who owns social media."
But, that's for another discussion.
In looking at your comments above, please also consider public relations in this mix. We're a critical cog to social media strategy that ought to blend with the marketing objectives.
In fact, we do much of the content creation that blends nicely with the marketing public relations strategy.
Good point, Jayme ~ Public Relations is definitely a stakeholder meant to be included in the second point !!
This is social media strategy :
But, that's for another discussion.please also consider public relations in this mix.
Hi, nice post. I have been thinking about this topic,so thanks for sharing. I will likely be coming back to your blog. Keep up the good work
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