Social Media Marketing: Getting in the Game, Part 1
Epic social media successes Facebook and Twitter have many marketers scrambling to figure out how, or if, they should include these trendy sites in their marketing mix.
The hard fact is, social media, like any other marketing program — email, pay per click, affiliates, etc. — is less about luck and instant success, and much more about common sense, patience and hard work.
Strategy Succeeds, Tactics Fail
Strategy is putting together a comprehensive plan for approaching social media, with reasonable goals and realistic expectations. Tactics are deciding on a whim to put up a Facebook fan page, or set up a Twitter account and tweet once, or launch a blog and never update the content.
Using social media as part of your marketing strategy — and making money as a result — involves a two-step process:
* (Corporate) self awareness: Do you fully understand your target customers and what products or services have the broadest appeal? Before adding social media to your marketing mix, do you need to refresh your overall marketing plan?
* Social media planning: This takes an organized, analytical approach, and it lays the groundwork necessary to do social media right, the first time. Follow these eight steps:
- Understand the social media landscape: Do your homework on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, location-based social networks and more.
- Determine which sites your customers spend their time on. See if there are any communities that would relate to your products or philosophy.
- Practice reputation management and see what your customers are saying about you.
- Identify problems or opportunities where an active social media conversation could be effective.
- Review your business plan and objectively consider where social media fits into your brand awareness and sales objectives.
- Ask yourself: Do you have the resources — internal and external — to execute a social media strategy?
- After all of this analysis, if social media appears to be a proper fit, set about writing your plan with time lines and tactics.
- Realize that social media is a cumulative process. One tweet or YouTube video doesn’t cut it; plan for a steady flow of activities.
Reality Checks
Social media is the poster child for a moving target. Sites that were once all the buzz have waned. Eventually something will outdo Facebook. Your social media engagement must be dynamic. Check out Wikipedia as a source for the latest sites.
Social media is also extremely labor intensive. Blogs and social networking pages must be constantly refreshed to gain traffic and followers. You'll need dedicated staff and/or outsourced help.
Realize that social media can raise brand awareness, support sales’ processes and generate outright sales. However, it’s not a magic elixir. If a consumer didn’t want your product or service before, just because you set up a Facebook page doesn't mean they're going to automatically change their mind. Social media is very good at opening lines of communication with customers and prospects, but you need to observe boundaries as well. Be very aware of overdoing communication and abusing good customer relationships.
Lastly, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Quantifying the return on investment of social media — e.g., Twitter ads, Facebook impressions, etc. — is definitely possible and will become more critical as ad platforms on these sites gain further acceptance.
In part two of this multipart series, I’ll discuss key budget considerations in regards to social media, and how to apply advertising analytics to gauge whether spending on Facebook or Twitter is realizing ROI for you.
Joy Brazelle is director of product marketing and professional services for ClearSaleing, an advertising analytics and attribution management company. Joy can be reached at joy.brazelle@clearsaleing.com.
