Essential Questions to Ask What is your objective? Every company, large or small, must first consider why it wants to use social media.
The answer may seem simple: to increase sales and profitability or to reach new clients.
It is, rather, a question that should be addressed carefully.
Several related questions should also be answered.
In what way does your company wish to be seen by its prospective customers? What are the qualities you wish to be associated with your company's brand? How will you use each platform to promote your brand and achieve the objective set for your company? A company's social media strategy can be simple and still achievable, but measures will need to be established to gauge success.
An objective should be specific, but not too narrow as to limit future growth.
For example, the owner of a local pizza parlor has the dual objective of "increasing public awareness of the business and creating an online forum for all things pizza.
" How will you measure the success of your objective? Measuring ROI for social networks is not as easy as other forms of marketing.
Analysts point to a lack of concrete data on how these networks affect a business's bottom line.
However, there are certainly several worthwhile methods of measurement available to businesses.
Measures for most objectives will include: •Year-to-year sales comparisons, •tracking the numbers in a fan base or a following, •reviewing the level of activity on discussion boards, •paying attention to conversations on walls and comments to blogs, •tracking the use of links, and •comparing web traffic over periods of time using analytics.
Each company will decide which measures are most important to measuring the success of its objective.
It is important to remember that true impact cannot be measured in a week, or even in three months.
Six month and yearly intervals are good times for measuring ROI.
Who will be your advocate? A company's social network will only be as effective as those who implement it.
Find one person in your company who understands its importance and is enthusiastic about its possibilities.
Empower this person as the company's social media advocate.
He or she should be charged with the responsibility of advising colleagues on best use and with spearheading specific projects.
An ideal advocate uses many different social media platforms and knows the underlying culture of each.
She is an outstanding listener and an adept writer.
People like this woman.
She puts them at ease when conversing.
She is a person who others trust and respect.
An attractive alternative is to make an outside consultant or agency your company's social media advocate.
Consulting firms specializing in different business sectors are widely available.
These companies have the expertise and time to make effective use of your company's social networks The best advocates generate cultural change in their companies.
There are countless examples from corporate America, from Frank Eliason at Comcast to Scott Monty at Ford.
They help colleagues see how powerful this new means of relationship-building can be.
With an advocate like this, a company's social media can achieve remarkable results.
How will your employees use social media? Each company's employees are a unique group of individuals.
When considering a social media strategy, a company has to consider the types of people from whom they expect social media interaction.
To illustrate the point, think about the difference between the employees of a public accounting firm and those of a realty business.
The accountants and realtors may have wildly different personalities.
For the accounting firm, the social media advocate may need to encourage employees to interact on these platforms.
The accountants may require quantitative measures to evaluate success.
In the other situation, an advocate may need to simply provide a framework and feedback as the realtors are more likely to produce content without prompting.
These employees might not need the numbers like their counterparts, focusing rather on human interaction to gauge social media's merits.
Also, the software used in social media will need to be understood thoroughly by a company's leadership and its chosen advocate.
Each platform should be studied and discussed, with attention being paid to its strengths and weaknesses when compared to others.
Employees will need to be informed of the proper usage of all software through training sessions and continual correspondence about best practices.
Why does listening matter most? Social media is a global cocktail party.
It is a worldwide conversation and your voice is not the most important one.
The most successful strategies start with open ears.
To begin, a company should find and listen to the conversations of comparable businesses that use similar platforms.
This research can help a company understand the best (and possibly worst) practices.
Once implementing these technologies on its own, a company needs to focus attention on what its customers are saying.
Responding to their questions, concerns, and ideas in a timely and helpful manner will pay dividends in the future.
The more accessible and transparent a company is, the more trusting its customers will be.
A customer that trusts your company because he feels valued is one who becomes an advocate.
And this is ROI that cannot be measured, but cannot be ignored either.
Conclusion - Social Media in 2010 The end of the first decade of the 21st century has been a turbulent time.
The global financial downturn, now being called The Great Recession, has forced businesses to cut expenses, streamline processes, and seek unconventional methods of generating revenue.
In 2010, social media is poised to be an integral method for creating business opportunities in this difficult economy.
With minimal costs and seemingly endless possibilities for adaption, it is no longer a novel method, it is an essential one.
This coming year will bring new ways of integrating platforms, the rise of the mobile phone as a social device, and expansion of use among baby boomers and younger generations.
The answer may seem simple: to increase sales and profitability or to reach new clients.
It is, rather, a question that should be addressed carefully.
Several related questions should also be answered.
In what way does your company wish to be seen by its prospective customers? What are the qualities you wish to be associated with your company's brand? How will you use each platform to promote your brand and achieve the objective set for your company? A company's social media strategy can be simple and still achievable, but measures will need to be established to gauge success.
An objective should be specific, but not too narrow as to limit future growth.
For example, the owner of a local pizza parlor has the dual objective of "increasing public awareness of the business and creating an online forum for all things pizza.
" How will you measure the success of your objective? Measuring ROI for social networks is not as easy as other forms of marketing.
Analysts point to a lack of concrete data on how these networks affect a business's bottom line.
However, there are certainly several worthwhile methods of measurement available to businesses.
Measures for most objectives will include: •Year-to-year sales comparisons, •tracking the numbers in a fan base or a following, •reviewing the level of activity on discussion boards, •paying attention to conversations on walls and comments to blogs, •tracking the use of links, and •comparing web traffic over periods of time using analytics.
Each company will decide which measures are most important to measuring the success of its objective.
It is important to remember that true impact cannot be measured in a week, or even in three months.
Six month and yearly intervals are good times for measuring ROI.
Who will be your advocate? A company's social network will only be as effective as those who implement it.
Find one person in your company who understands its importance and is enthusiastic about its possibilities.
Empower this person as the company's social media advocate.
He or she should be charged with the responsibility of advising colleagues on best use and with spearheading specific projects.
An ideal advocate uses many different social media platforms and knows the underlying culture of each.
She is an outstanding listener and an adept writer.
People like this woman.
She puts them at ease when conversing.
She is a person who others trust and respect.
An attractive alternative is to make an outside consultant or agency your company's social media advocate.
Consulting firms specializing in different business sectors are widely available.
These companies have the expertise and time to make effective use of your company's social networks The best advocates generate cultural change in their companies.
There are countless examples from corporate America, from Frank Eliason at Comcast to Scott Monty at Ford.
They help colleagues see how powerful this new means of relationship-building can be.
With an advocate like this, a company's social media can achieve remarkable results.
How will your employees use social media? Each company's employees are a unique group of individuals.
When considering a social media strategy, a company has to consider the types of people from whom they expect social media interaction.
To illustrate the point, think about the difference between the employees of a public accounting firm and those of a realty business.
The accountants and realtors may have wildly different personalities.
For the accounting firm, the social media advocate may need to encourage employees to interact on these platforms.
The accountants may require quantitative measures to evaluate success.
In the other situation, an advocate may need to simply provide a framework and feedback as the realtors are more likely to produce content without prompting.
These employees might not need the numbers like their counterparts, focusing rather on human interaction to gauge social media's merits.
Also, the software used in social media will need to be understood thoroughly by a company's leadership and its chosen advocate.
Each platform should be studied and discussed, with attention being paid to its strengths and weaknesses when compared to others.
Employees will need to be informed of the proper usage of all software through training sessions and continual correspondence about best practices.
Why does listening matter most? Social media is a global cocktail party.
It is a worldwide conversation and your voice is not the most important one.
The most successful strategies start with open ears.
To begin, a company should find and listen to the conversations of comparable businesses that use similar platforms.
This research can help a company understand the best (and possibly worst) practices.
Once implementing these technologies on its own, a company needs to focus attention on what its customers are saying.
Responding to their questions, concerns, and ideas in a timely and helpful manner will pay dividends in the future.
The more accessible and transparent a company is, the more trusting its customers will be.
A customer that trusts your company because he feels valued is one who becomes an advocate.
And this is ROI that cannot be measured, but cannot be ignored either.
Conclusion - Social Media in 2010 The end of the first decade of the 21st century has been a turbulent time.
The global financial downturn, now being called The Great Recession, has forced businesses to cut expenses, streamline processes, and seek unconventional methods of generating revenue.
In 2010, social media is poised to be an integral method for creating business opportunities in this difficult economy.
With minimal costs and seemingly endless possibilities for adaption, it is no longer a novel method, it is an essential one.
This coming year will bring new ways of integrating platforms, the rise of the mobile phone as a social device, and expansion of use among baby boomers and younger generations.
Source...