I was recently asked to give a presentation on the “Power of Social Media” to a mid-sized, National Homebuilder based out of Orange County, California.
While gathering my thoughts and compiling data, I came to the realization that I was in fact becoming a huge hypocrite. How could I present the benefits of a robust social media campaign to a large company, while I in fact don’t use social media to its full potential. Yes, we are an interactive based Ad Agency and Yes, we are experts in the latest trends in social media and we do have experience running very large campaigns for our clients. But where is OUR campaign? Where is OUR social media presence?
Is one Facebook post and one tweet every two weeks enough to be effective? Absolutely not. So why do we even bother?
I have a feeling that a lot of business owners and marketing directors are running into this same problem.
“If social media is the trend for businesses, we need to be involved. We can’t be left behind!” It’s easy enough to set up a Twitter account, isn’t it?
No one wants to be left at the back of the pack. But it’s the steps that follow account set up and the initial post that will make or break your campaign. A good overall strategy and plan starts at the beginning.
Most small business owners and marketing staff don’t have time to constantly update social media feeds with relevant information. At least interesting information that will attract a recurring audience and potentially convert to leads/sales in the future. Often times that task gets left to the intern to “just post something”. #FAIL.
As my father always said, “if you’re going to take the time to do something, do it right.” As general as that advice is, it always seems to apply.
With my recent revelations, we’ve decided that we need to man up and turn the ship around internally. We need to be utilizing some of the same concepts we apply to all of our clients campaigns.
Here are some of those concepts and my thoughts on building and maintaining a successful social media campaign.
1. Find a voice that reflects your brand and evolve it over time.
This is the single most important piece of advice I can give. It should be the cornerstone of any successful campaign. Most businesses think that random posts, messages and videos that don’t relate to one another, posted on a daily/weekly/monthly basis will “work”. This white noise will be ignored and never gain traction. You need a consistent voice. Something that people can learn to know and love. Something that people value and trust. Be as transparent as possible and become the source of information within your industry.
2. Figure out what story you want to tell your customers and prospects about your business. Make sure your social media campaign follows that.
This also relates to my first point. Make sure that you stay consistent with your companies story throughout your entire campaign. Become the absolute trusted source of information about your business, that people can consistently rely on. Make sure that there isn’t a disconnect between your website messaging, any print advertisements and/or collateral pieces. Keep your campaign holistic with consistent messaging across the board. Your social media messaging should really be complimentary to all other ongoing campaigns outside of the web. Or vice versa.
3. Employ the use of a widget/tool that allows you to post your updates across multiple sites/accounts.
There are many of these tools available such as TweetDeck. These are HUGE time savers. They also ensure that your messaging stays consistent through all channels. Obviously we would recommend creating separate posts every now and again to break up the monotony. We also know that not all social media sites and social media users are created equally and it’s sometimes best to address them each differently. But if you can utilize these tools as often as needed and to their full potential, they will help you continue to deliver your messaging and stay connected with much less effort and time invested. Which we know is one of the major hurdles with most of our clients.
4. Keep your content interesting
Simple enough, right? Some businesses have a hard time with this one. If all you use social media for is regurgitating news/articles or posting other unoriginal content, social media will not be nearly as effective as it could be for your business. Every social media campaign doesn’t need to be on par with the most recent Old Spice campaign, but you do need to provide value to the user in one of many forms. Entertainment value, economic/monetary value or becoming a trusted educational source about a particular industry or product. The user needs some incentive to come back and/or share with their friends.
Try to utilize these four guidelines while setting up or rekindling the fire for your social media campaign. And remember, it’s never too late to get started or make a significant change in your companies social media strategy. Sometimes all it takes is a simple new concept or basic framework to really give you the online boost that your company has needed.
Hopefully by utilizing some of these basic concepts, your business can take the next steps in starting to generate a solid buzz online. They’ve certainly helped us.
