Social impacts all corners of your company. For this reason, nobody should ?own? the social media strategy in your organization.? The first step in the process is to create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy. Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your business? goals. Starting a social media marketing Idaho campaign without a social strategy in mind is like wandering through a forest without a map?you?ll only end up lost.
A marketing firm can be a valuable asset. Here are a few ways they might help you:
Passion is the fuel of social media.?Figuring out how your organization will appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head, is vital. For instance, Disney isn?t about movies; it?s about magic. Apple isn?t about technology; it?s about innovation. What are you about? Your marketing professional can help you identify this.
To make a social media strategy work, you?ll want to understand your audience. With whom will you be interacting in social media? What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your customers? How does this impact your social media strategy? These are important question. Let a professional guide you.
It?s an old social media strategy chestnut by now, but ?listen? is still good advice that?s often ignored. The reality is that your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.
The best social media strategies are those that are narrowly focused. Yes, you can use social media to help accomplish several business objectives. Your marketing professional can help you understand what your goals are? Awareness? Sales? Loyalty and retention?
Social media is about people, not logos. The mechanics of social force companies to compete for attention. Thus, your company has to (at least to some degree) act like a person, not an entity. How will you do that?
This is a step you will not want to skip. How are you going to determine whether this is actually making a difference in your business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness? Will you measure ROI?