12 Tips for Success in Social Media

8/6/2019 12 Tips for Success in Social Media

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Putat Veliqui

12 Essential Tips or Success in Social MediaMarketing in an Age o Networked Customer Communities

A MotiveLab Marketing Brie | Summer 2007

motive labSocial Marketing Group

www.motivelab.com


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1 Essential Tips for Success in Social Media A MotiveLab Marketing Brief

Whether you call it Social Media orConsumer Generated Content, theresno debate over the accelerating popularity o

Internet sites and orums where consumersshare opinions and experiences about everyproduct and service imaginable. From blogsand podcasts to wikis and social networks,social media allows consumers to rate andreview products, advise ellow consumers, and

even make their own commercials praising orbashing businesses and brands.

Te orce that is driving social media is as old as business itsel: word-o-mouth.

Buyers have always shared advice on purchasing decisions, and consider word-

o-mouth among the most trustworthy o inormation sources. But advancing

Internet and communications technology has dramatically amplied word-o-

mouth, making consumer conversations one o the most rapidly expandingsources o content on the Web. Both business and retail buyers are leverag-

ing social media as a critical step in the process o making purchase decisions,

elevating online word-o-mouth ar above advertising and marketing as a trusted

source o inormation. As a result, marketers are rapidly losing control over

their own positioning and messaging as consumers begin to control the market

conversation.

So how should marketers respond?


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Agrowing number o marketers are exploringand embracing social marketing opportuni-ties. Business blogs are on the rise, as are podcasts,

wikis and customer orums. Social media is also

crossing over in mobile marketing campaigns. In

act, the variety o new social media options is

growing so rapidly that its oten overwhelming.But there are a ew undamentals or an eective

approach to Social Marketing that span all tech-

nologies and markets.

Before You Start

1. Establish Clear Business Objectives andMetrics

Youd be surprised at how many blogs and pod-

casting programs are started as an executive pet

project. Tat may relieve some pressure to dem-

onstrate ROI, but as a marketer responsible ora social media initiative, you should never move

o the starting mark without clear and measur-

able business goals. Measurability doesnt always

mean revenue, but thats always a good place to

start. Are you hoping to directly inuence sales? I

not, how can you best measure the value o your

social media program against a specic business

objective?

Many companies are embracing social media tools

to reduce customer service costs by enabling peer

support through online orums. Other companiesare replacing expensive ocus groups and other

market research with online customer orums and

advisory boards. I youre ocusing on building

awareness and generating leads, the available

metrics are no better or worse than metrics cur-

rently available or advertising or public relations

programs. You can measure RSS subscriptions and

page views, and you can even measure your inu-

ence on market conversations by tracking inbound

links to your social media sitea measure at least

as worthy as brand awareness.

2. Rerame Your Notion o Marketing Com-munications

Many marketers embracing social media are bring-

ing old skills to a new game, and theyre making a

critical miscalculation. Te social media phenome-

non is not just a new set o communications vehi-

cles or broadcasting value propositions to a target

market. Its about customers sharing inormation

to make better decisions, precisely because theyre

jaded by the packaging and spin that typies most

marketing and advertising campaigns. Tey want

the straight dope, and they want it rom people

they trustprimarily their peers. When customerscontrol content, marketers inevitably lose some

control o the message. But that doesnt diminish

the capability o good marketers to communicate

eectively with their marketsin act it can create

a signicant competitive advantage. It just takes a

dierent approach. Marketers need to see them-

selves not as owners o market share, but as mem-

bers o a market community, and their communi-

cations not so much campaigns as conversations

with the market. Where the typical marketing

program begins wrapping up when a campaign ispushed out the door, thats where a social media

program begins. Its all about authentic engage-

ment with the market community, at every stage

o the customer liecycle, not just during lead-gen

and loyalty campaigns.

3. Clariy Your Positioning

For all the novelty o social media, successul

execution invariably hinges on an age-old unda-

mentala clear and consistent position across all

business touch points. In social communications,

your positioning is no longer conned to whats

printed on your Website or brochures, and its no

longer static. Everything you and your team say in

blog postings, comments, wikis or orums is part

o the positioning abric, along with everything

your company does, rom how it promotes its

products to how the delivery driver behaves in

trafc. I everyone is not crystal clear on what

your company stands or, what it believes and how

it behaves, at best youre setting the stage or a

diused and ineective program, at worst a public

relations nightmare. Some companies have always

understood that every employee is a brand ambas-

sador. By ampliying word-o-mouth, social media

makes that lesson important or every company.

Beore you launch a social media program, you

should clariy your companys current corporate

and product positioning, as well as any relevant

mission or vision statement, and make sure every-


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one involved in the initiative understands it. You

dont want employees quoting rom a script every

time they engage with the market, but you do

want them to be able to authentically and consis-

tently represent what the company stands or.

Ramping Up4. Identiy the Inuencers

Te rst meaningul step o engagement is to

identiy where the conversations are taking place

that are relevant to your market community, and

who is shaping those conversations. Tis can

lead to some interesting surprises or marketers

who are used to targeting their market based on

segmentation and proling. Instead o beginning

with the target and nding out what they have

to say, you begin with whats being said that is

relevant to your market and seeing who is sayingit. Some tools, like BuzzLogic, are designed to al-

low the tracking o keywords and phrases through

a complex trail o links through blogs and other

social media, in order to identiy and rank key

conversation inuencers on any topic. Te eect

o seeing how opinions, attitudes and even rumors

are shaped around specic centers o inuence is

invariably an eye-opening experience or market-

ers, and oten challenges entrenched assumptions

about their market. Its important to recognize

that inuencers are not always your customers,

but their impact on your revenue stream can be

signicant. Tey may be ormer customers who

have become disaected, they may be champions

o a competing product, or they may simply be

agnostics with a strong market perspective that

challenges your own. Being able to see beyond the

scope o your own customer base to understand

how your market is inuenced is one o the most

important advantages o a social media program.

5. Listen Beore You Launch

In any conversation, a smart communicator

spends time listening to the dialog beore they

engage. Its not just about knowing whats being

discussed, its about getting the eel or tone and

style, and getting a sense o the people driving

the discussion. Nothing stands out more than

someone spouting o completely out o rhythm

with the ow o the conversation. Your market

1. Review your corporate or product

positioning.

2. Use your positioning to dene relevantkeywords and keyword phrases.

3. Assign a team o cross-unctional em-

ployees to help track and, when appropri-

ate, to respond to social media content

relevant to your market. Make your rules

o engagement clear, especially proac-

tive identication o employment and

position.

4. Use your keywords and keyword phras-

es to identiy social media infuencers

who are driving conversations relevant to

your business.

5. Read the social media content o top

infuencers in your market to understand

the tone, direction and drivers o the cur-

rent dialog.

6. Submit comments on the blogs o

infuencers in your market. I you have

a blog, link to the blogs o infuencers,

write posts that reerence and link to their

posts, use trackbacks and pingbacks i

they accept them. Try to engage them

in online dialog between your blogs and

with others. Reach out to them in person

and try to develop relationships.

7. Follow the same process to engage in

other orms o social media, including

orums, wikis, bulletin boards and other

social media applications.

8. Track your engagements with infuenc-

ers and review the related responses and

metrics o attention to them.

9. Rene and repeat.

QUICK START GUIDE


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community will be distributed across numerous

social media channels, and while the members o

the community may be the same, the issues and

attitudes can take on a very dierent cast rom one

blog or orum to the next. Just as a good media

relations expert spends time reading the work o a

journalist beore they pitch a story, a good socialmedia approach includes reading the posts on a

blog or orum beore weighing inand it requires

a sense o timing. I you steamroll through every

blog in your market community posting the same

content and just ogging the issues you think

are important, youll quickly be marked as an

outsider. A better approach is to use the available

tools to keep your nger on the pulse o conversa-

tion, and work your way into the natural ow.

6. Integrate Social Media with SEO

One o the most powerul capabilities o so-

cial media, especially blogging, is the ability to

dramatically impact search engine positioning.

Te combination o continually resh content,

extensive page inventory rom individual blog

posts, content expansion through comments and

trackbacks, and incoming links rom other blogs

ar surpasses the optimization potential o almost

any static Web site. Te keys to optimizing your

blog or search engine optimization are ocus,

discipline and creative copywriting. You need to

ocus on a narrow set o relevant topics, with rel-

evant keywords and phrases; you need to maintainthe discipline to ocus on those topics continu-

ously; and you need to be creative in relentlessly

working the keywords and phrases into your blog

post titles, links, and copy, without sounding as i

youre writing copy or a search engine. Ultimately

your most inuential audience are human beings,

not computers, so dont let your SEO ambitions

take the lie out o your blog.

Diving Into Social Media

7. Engage Your Audience

Whether youre launching your own social

media application or engaging in others, the

key to building inuence in your community is

getting involved. Simply launching a blog or a

orum isnt enough. You need to participate in

the conversation. I youve already identied the

people inuencing market dialog, comment on

their blogs. Put them on your blogroll. Write

posts that trackback to their blog i they allow

trackbacks. Write posts that engage or challenge

them on a topic that matters. Go orth and get in

the conversation; dont wait or it to come to you.

o be successul, you need to continually engage

and develop relationships through dialog with the

inuencers. A couple o things to keep in mind

about engagement. First, leading practitioners

currently estimate that about 1% o the total

audience or a social media site actively engage in

public participation. Te rest are either lurkers,

people who actively observe, but dont publicly

engage, or people who only occasionally observe.

Successul social media programs, whether they

rely on consumer generated contentlike wikis or

blog commentsor consumer participationlike

product ratings or le sharing sitesare those

that can leverage one percent participation

to provide value to the whole community.

Second, its important to plan or sustained

engagement wherever you get involved. I you

simply parachute in to a conversation to bestow

Identiying Infuencers and Mapping Communities

BuzzLogic is a search tool that surfaces inuencers in social media conversa -

tions, and generates a social map to visualize the composition of a community.


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your position, and dont return until another

conversation shows up on your radar, youll

ail to establish the kind o relationships and

reputation that make you a trusted member o

the community. People notice who takes the

time to engage meaningully, and that impression

becomes a multiple or your reputationin act,many social media applications have mechanisms

to rank your reputation by involvement.

8. Engage Your Employees

Social media programs are a valuable opportunity

to build cross unctional teams in your

organization. Select an initiative that helps

you build bridges internallyor pipes into the

organization as its sometimes phrased. Everyone

has a slightly dierent take on your market issues,

and a dierent way o trawling the Web to nd

things you can link to and leverage. Put together

an editorial team o employees, and set a regular

schedule to discuss content. Assign people to cover

keywords, or specic market groups, and keep the

team up to date on whats being discussed in the

blogosphere, and where the opportunities might

be today or linking and dialog. Having a base

or your social media team beyond the marketing

sta does more to reduce than expand the risks

o social communications. It provides a broader

resource pool o expertise about all aspects o the

companys operations, and it helps evangelize thecompanys market positionand the important

role o marketingwithin the organization.

9. Engage Your Customers

Nothing lters up good ideas and new content

like talking directly to customers. Interview a ew

o your customers or partners and ask or their

take on the issues. Ask them what they want to

know about. Ask what sources they listen to on

the Web. Ask them what theyd like to see i they

could look inside your company or a day. Dont

prole your customers and assume what theywould say, ask them and let them surprise you.

Avoid the temptation to shape your customers

words into testimonials. I you want a glowing

quote, ask or a quote. But use your social media

program to have an honest dialog on open

ground. One o the most promising areas o social

media is the opportunity to bring your customers

into the marketing process, by allowing them

to provide their own ideas and eedback to your

products and programs. Some companies develop

private communities where select customers can

get an early view o emerging products, while

others open up public orums where customers

can post their own ideas and vote on others.

Many companies are even getting into the trend

o encouraging customers to create their own

commercials or their products. Whatever course

you take, its important to recognize that your

customers are a ertile source o new ideas and

innovations, and social media makes that source

more accessible than ever.

10. Be Honest and Authentic

One characteristic o social media is that people

are more aggressive about reading between the

lines to interpret other peoples intentions. And

theyre remarkably savvy about it. Just as the loss

o sight oten leads to an enhancement o other

sensory input, the inability to read body language

and acial expressions online leads readers to

attend to the subtlest cues in written language.

And its not just something that happens rom

post to post. I someone suspects youre in some

way misrepresenting yoursel, theyll use any o

the tools available to investigate your past postings

across the blogosphere to sni out what yourereally up to. It happens all the time, and it severely

undercuts the credibility o anyone exposed as a

shill. Whether youre launching your own social

media site or just participating in discussions

around the Web, be conspicuously honest and

straightorward about who you are and who you

represent. Te cost o being exposed or even

accused as dishonest is never worth the small

gains you may think youll get by inuencing

the conversation as an objective participant.

A number o well-known and very savvy public

relations rms have been severely burned by tryingto mount sophisticated ronts or bloggers with

shielded identities. On the ip side, bloggers

that openly announce their afliations oten do

take disproportionate criticism, but usually earn

at least grudging respect or being up ront. At

minimum, that keeps the ocus on the story you


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12 Tips for Success in Social Media