Yikes! You’re doing social media all wrong

 
Over the past year we have seen an increase in the number of requests for social media campaigns. Most of them have centered around the need to establish a presence on facebook and twitter while  some clients, but not many, have asked for integrated campaigns that link  business  objectives to tactics and results. 

In the last 20 months  or so we have  learned a lot;  we’ve  also made our fair  share of mistakes (thankfully with our own brand as a guinea pig).  However,  in promoting this always changing medium and laying  the foundation for  social media’s integration into the business process we have learned many important lessons worth sharing.

Please don’t go into the boardroom with the number of fans!

Business goals and objectives were around long before Twitter, Facebook and the likes  and so your social media strategy has to link right back to that. Executives, I have found, care very little about the number  of  re-tweets, followers and fans. Okay maybe they  get excited for about a minute but to  really demonstrate value you’ve got to see how your tactics are driving sales, generating real behavourial changes, meeting the business goals.

Forget the silos. Integrate!

Please don’t hinge your marketing star onto social media. Sure Facebook ads cost a ‘penny’, Twitter is ‘free’ Flip makes creating You Tube videos easy and cheap., Four Squatre is fun. But you can’t  just tack on social media to a traditional approach to move customer through the funnel and declare that have a strategy. An integrated cross channel experience is key,  you must plan the  objectives of each touch point and then focus on how they all work in tandem.

Not just for the interns!

It’s crazy to have one person  doing social media and get occasional reports about the fan base. Sure assign a  champion but social media will cut across your organisation and in many cases interactions started on social networks require internal collaboration to act upon. Brands and organisations  need to formalise processes for responding, collecting insights and measuring, the responsibility is not for the  new intern  in the department.

Nurture your influencers!

Do you know who is influencing the purchase? Who is spreading your brand and word?  You should be nurturing these relationships carefully after all they are the ones spreading your brand  farther and faster  to an even greater number of people than ever before. 

Assign the value  that social media deserves!

Digital marketing is part of an overall  strategy that delivers a specific set of tactics  to meet particular objectives. So how do you  decide social media’s impact when  (as in the case of a big sale of a product ) there are multiple  touch points involved:  ranging from viewing website, product demonstrations  and on site meetings. When  the initiation of the lead comes from a social channel how does it get “credit”. Creating an attribution model for social activity, is imperative before heading to the boardroom, how else to justify request for additional investments.

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