Social Media is no walk in the Park
I have just read Chris Brogan’s blog post “Just as Difficult as it Seems”
I posted a comment which I have reproduced here as I think it is relevant to my last few posts on this site.
In Chris’s post, he talks about social media strategies being rather more involved and complicated than setting up a FaceBook page, or Twitter account.
My comment is below.
This comes back to two issues
- The myths of Social media
- The concept that social media strategies are “bolt on’s”
The myths of social media.
Among others
- Social media is free. Social media is not free. Some of the tools and external social networks used may not require a direct, upfront fee, or paid up membership, but this does not equate to free.
- Pushing your brand online does not lead to a “pull” situation. Buy in and relationships are not formed from a few online mentions, links and replies.
- Using social media tools is the domain of the marketing person. Without organizational buy in, support and alignment, any social media strategy is difficult to maintain and will struggle to gain momentum.
Social Media Strategies are bolt on’s.
This relates to point c above. Running a two week print campaign in The New York Times may be a very good strategy for some organizations. Following this mentality for your social media strategy will not work. A social media strategy has to:
a. Take a long term view
b. Take into account the real time expectations of online savvy audiences
c. Be targeted
d. Be relevant
e. Align with all other marketing initiatives
f. Have metrics and analytics attached
g. Grow, change, adapt, change direction, learn, remain fresh
h. Have whole system buy in
i. Be centred around content that can travel, grow and have value added to it. (UGV)
Brilliant post. When I first saw it on Chris Brogan’s blog post this was the one that stood out the most as contributing further to the conversation. Having conversations on social media as a casual personal user is easy. Utilizing social media as a brand is a whole other story. There is a process behind creating and maintaining a business. Implementing and maintaining a social media strategy for a business is no different. There may be different techniques that you employ in social media that don’t exactly translate from your previous efforts. The ONE THING that does need to translate is your brand voice and message. What makes sense in social media for one company may not for another. For example, one company’s customers may want to follow a Twitter account from that brand that only tweets instant limited time act-now deals. This style of social media may not be relevant anywhere in your online business model. That’s just one example. There are unlimited amounts of variables that is reason enough to why you must build your social media strategy from the ground up and NOT bolt it on, as you say.
Great job at laying out the groundwork for a business’ social media strategy.
http://twitter.com/db
Hi Damien. Thanks for visiting and for taking the conversation further. Relevance and depth are, for me, the key takeaways from your comment.