It is essential to maintain a a notable presence on social media, we have already established that. So how pray tell do you go about this seemingly insurmountable task? Strategy.
Everybody throws this word around, so it is only fair that I try and debunk the myths that accompany this word. A strategy is simply a thought out plan for tackling a project. Social brings with it advantages such as feedback, two way communication, market research and collective intelligence, thus like I stated in an earlier article, you cannot afford to give social media a wide berth.
First and foremost, you need to know what your company objectives are. These will determine what platforms are essential for you. Do you want to increase your sales or interact with customers? Do you want to meet other business executives, or simply talk about your products? There are numerous platforms now like LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ so you need to know what your objectives are.
Once that has been hammered down, then it is time to draw up your strategy. Your strategy should include a budget, roles, content creation plans, as well as who the company will task with seeing these implemented. Do you plan to hire new staff or will you train the In-house PR department to carry out these functions? How do you plan to integrate social media in the marketing department, communications department etc? You need to determine all that.
Having decided on all these factors, you need to train the whole company on the voice and tone that your employees should use when on social media. Being respectful in general cuts across the board, even when it comes to personal accounts and handles. You need to determine who will have access to the company accounts to ensure that secret information is not accidentally leaked. Common language is key, so that you all sound as one.
A sound strategy will ensure that social media feeders like Facebook and Twitter as well as Tumblr, drive traffic to your site. Also, Twitter can act as the number one feedback channel as opposed to customer care calls, like What Safaricom and Kenya Red-cross have done.
Once the company plus the management has been trained, you can now devise a step by step implementation and monitoring plan. This will ensure that you can monitor your rate of conversion, rate of interaction, brand visibility, brand awareness among your fans, competitors’ strategies, as well as social conversations.
If you plan to bring in external help, please make sure that they know everything there is to know about your business. Knowing the history behind it, as well as who your target clients is imperative. They need to be fully aware of the company objectives, so that the content shared is very relevant yet current. Social media investment is all about content curation, tech-savvy personnel and a budget, do not think that your strategy will take off without fiscal support.
