You’ve heard all about Social Media and how it is the “next big thing”. Everyone’s doing it, your competitors are doing it, so you figure you need to be doing it as well. You create a company Facebook and Twitter account and are tweeting / posting on a daily basis about incentives and general information relating to your business. After about two months, you haven’t noticed any significant change in your business. Most companies will write this off as Social Media being “overrated” or “not for them”. However, there is a LOT more to social media than just Facebook and Twitter. That’s not to say that these two websites can’t be extremely valuable to your business..you just need to utilize them properly.
Before you put an end to your Social Media campaign altogether you should take a step back and analyze whether or not you are doing everything you can with your campaign. Below is some advice that will help steer your Social Media campaign in the right direction.
Do you have a set “Social Media goal” in place? – A lot of companies will rush into starting a Social Media campaign because of all the hype surrounding it..which is why most companies fail. You need to establish reasonable goals and end objectives otherwise you will never achieve desirable results. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Generate new customers? Whatever your goals are, clearly outline them before the start of your Social Media Campaign. Think about how you implement all of your other marketing strategies. You wouldn’t send a direct mailer or run a television advertisement without some sort of end goal. Why should Social Media be any different?
Have you clearly outlined a set strategy? – A set strategy isn’t setting up a Facebook profile, submitting a piece of content to Digg, or tweeting about every single page on your website. There must be a “why” factor with everything you do related to Social Media. You are submitting content from your page to Digg, but why? If your answer is “because Digg is extremely popular” you are missing the ponit of Social Media altogether. Your strategy should be based on the what you expect to get out of your Social Media campaign. If you are stricly an e-commerce website selling clothing items, do you think anyone on Digg is going to care about the fact that you are selling t-shirts? Social Media is about communicating with your customers (both current and potential) and building up your brand. All of your strategies should reflect this is some compacity. Keep in mind that there are millions of different social media websites in existence. In order to outline a set strategy, you might need to test a few to see what works for the best for your business.
Who is Communicating on Behalf of Your Company? – You might have a solid Social Media strategy in place, but if it is implemented improperly you will fail. As mentioned earlier, communicating with your customers should represent a big part of your Social Media strategy. People want to communicate with other people…not a business. In order for a Social Media campaign to be truly effective there needs to be some sort of human element. That being said, the person representing your company should be well-versed in regards to most (if not all) areas of your business. A person who misrepresents your business could compromise all Social Media activities.
Are You Implementing On-Page Elements? – People tend to to neglect utilizing their website as part of their Social Media camaign. Keep in mind that your website is where you are most likely driving people with your online (and sometimes offline) marketing campaigns. How many “Social Media elements” are incorporated on your website? Do you have a Facebook and Twitter buttons linking to your Facebook and Twitter pages? If you don’t have a design team to create these buttons, you can easily grab them for free here: http://www.socialmediabuttons.com. A blog is also very easy to implement and can be very beneficial to your business. Having a blog provides the opportunity to create interesting and informative content, is great for branding, and can drive a lot of traffic and sales to our website. Already have great content on your website? Consider using http://www.addthis.com to help provide additional exposure. Addthis.com allows website visitors to easily submit a piece of content to dozens of Social Media websites.
How Are You Measuring Results? – It’s not just about the number of Facebook fans you have, the amount of traffic you received, or the number of Twitter followers exist; when it comes to Social Media you need to look at the big picture. People often mistake quantifiable numbers such as fans, followers, and visits as direct measurements of Social Media success, but that really is just a small piece of the puzzle. Has your target audience’s perception of your brand improved? Has brand awareness increased? Is the traffic you are getting from the right audience? In terms of brand perception, it is important to analyze what people are saying about your business from a positive, negative, or neutral perspective on a regular basis. Search for your company regularly on search engines, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs (blogsearch.google.com) to see if brand percpetion has improved overall. For an increase in brand awareness, Google has a keyword tool that allows you to assess monthly search volume related to any keyword phrase. Analyze the search volume related to your business name on a monthly basis to see if people are increasingly searching for your company. Additionally, you can always check your analytics to see if business-related keyword traffic has seen an increase.
As with any campaign, it is imperative to test for an adequate period of time and adjust your strategy based on your results.
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