Social media - everybody's doing it!
Over half of Fortune 100 companies are doing it. The top 100 global brands are improving their bottom line because of it. You’re engaged with it right now.
Social media – it’s not a new concept, nor is it likely go away any time soon, and yet it still remains a largely misunderstood and poorly utilised communication tool by so many organisations (See Social media used “badly”).
The reality is though, at some point or another (please, sooner rather than later) social media will become a part of your organisation’s regular communications activity.
You may decide to tweet, or befriend Facebook fans, or perhaps blog to the masses. Regardless of how you set about engaging with your target market through social media (and your approach should be targeted), there are a few basic steps to follow, to ensure mindless tweeting doesn’t expose you as a twit...
1. Evaluate the resources required
Social media requires constant interaction, and must be resourced accordingly. The ‘real time’ nature of social media means that yesterday’s news comes around quicker than ever, and content should be constantly refreshed if you’re to effectively and meaningfully engage with fans and followers.
2. Establish business goals and develop a strategy
As with any new business activity, you need to be clear on what you want to get out of social media engagement. Are you seeking feedback - providing customers an opportunity to tell you what they think of you? Do you want to grow awareness of something - using social media to share and spread your message?
Define your goals clearly and develop a strategy that is structured – yet flexible enough - to help you achieve them.
3. Use tools to eliminate the time-wasting
The amount of information that’s out there in the social media world is mind-blowing. Trawling unaided through Tweets, Facebook pages, YouTube clips, blogs and more, is going to chew up more time than you likely have. There are a plethora of tools (mostly free) to help you identify, sort and manage the information likely of interest to you. Some of the basic but ‘goodies’ include JournoTwit, TweetDeck, Shrook (for Mac), Seesmic and Google Alerts.
So with these tips in mind ... get planning and take the social media plunge. Everybody's doing it!
The material on this web page comprises the personal views of the author and does not represent the view or opinion of communikate et al. communikate et al accepts no liability for the content of this web page.
Post new comment