Kitabı oku: «Social Media», sayfa 2

1.4
Make a promise

Most of social media is free so commitment to a brand isn’t shown with money but with attention or inattention. To get that attention you need to offer a promise to people.

What difference do you want to make? What impact do you want to make? All great brands promise us something. Take a brand like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Many drinks quench your thirst, so why buy a branded drink which costs more? Simply because the brand seems to promise more.

Some brands last for generations even though the products are very different. What do Disney, McDonald’s, Twinings and Burberry really promise you that keeps you loyal to them? We will all pay more if someone or something makes us feel better. That’s why advertisers show us adverts populated with people we want to aspire to be like. For some of us, that means buying a product associated with the perfect home and family; for others it means a link with being young and fashionable or being different and anti-establishment.

Sometimes the brand promise is obvious and sometimes it takes time to think through. Start by considering what makes your business stand out from its competitors. By knowing what makes you different you can work out what you are really promising to give people when they connect with your brand.

“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business” Steve Forbes

Take a political information company, for example. What makes them different? Information is available from dozens of sites on the web. For one company it may be their humorous presentation of the news, for another the fact they are always first with the news or they have politicians rather than journalists working for them, so they are the first to learn about what really goes on in the corridors of power.

Perhaps you run a bakery. Isn’t selling cakes and bread and buns just about feeding people? Not necessarily. Perhaps it’s the way your posts of cakes in retro fifties’ settings make people feel as if they are living the domestic goddess dream. You promise the lifestyle with every product you sell.

Think about what makes you different and what your brand can promise its customers.

1.5
Create a goal

Who would have imagined when Twitter or Facebook began that the most famous brands in the world would be competing for space with people posting updates from their bedrooms? But that’s what has happened – social media is still sociable and fun but it has also become a serious platform on which to do business, and one-person bands can compete with the big players.

However, there’s no point getting involved in social media and just setting up accounts here and there because everyone else is doing it. Take an inventory of what you are already doing and what your competitors are doing, then SMART:

▪ S is for Specific. Be specific with your goals. Set some objectives for how many channels you are going to use, and what you are seeking to achieve.

▪ M is for Measurable. All your goals should be measurable so you know whether you are achieving them or not.

▪ A is for Achievable. What is it going to take to achieve your goals? Do you have the resources available? Can you make it happen by yourself? If not, who can help you?

“Media was very one way … Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue” Joseph Gordon-Levitt

one minute wonder Be specific about what you want to achieve by marketing your business on social media. An increase in customers? Growth in market share? A rise in net profit? A jump in average order price per customer? Total revenue growth?

▪ R is for Realistic and Relevant to your business. Do you need to do this? What will happen if you do? What will happen if you don’t? What won’t happen if you do or don’t?

▪ T is for Time. All good goals have a timeframe attached. Think about the long term and the short term. Then consider what is the easiest first step for you to take.

Create Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Relevant goals with a Timeframe attached.

1.6
Stake a claim

The social media landscape is rather like the old Wild West gold-mining towns. There’s definitely gold out there but if you don’t put a stake in the ground to claim your territory then someone else will get there first and your brand is gone.

Once you have your brand make sure you start buying the websites, Twitter name, Tumblr accounts and blogs with the right name or names for your business and any products or topics you want to stake a claim to.

But even if you’re not sure whether you are going to use a particular social media channel immediately, it is worth grabbing your place, especially with a new channel launch. The social media and digital worlds are so fast moving that a small channel may have hundreds of millions of users next year. If you’ve already got your brand name set up you won’t need to worry about someone else taking it. Choose a consistent name across the channels, or if you have more than one brand, think through which channels are suitable for which brands.

Make sure you get your accounts ‘verified’ or authenticated where appropriate so that people know the accounts are real. You will notice on Twitter, for example, that verified accounts have a tick next to them.

one minute wonder Social media can be used as a way of reducing the costs of training staff. You can post videos and content online for your staff or run interactive seminars through apps like WizIQ. Interesting, interactive content will increase the learning experience.

The average user has more than one social media account and this number is likely to rise. However some users do still find a community they enjoy most and spend the majority of their time there. It’s a complex situation for business. You need to know your users and also not spread yourself too thin.

Make sure you buy all the relevant account names you need before you begin, even if you don’t use them immediately.

1.7
Draw up a content strategy

Free content is everywhere on the web. It’s one of the biggest changes that the digital world has brought us. It is said that there is more information around in the last five years than in the whole of human history. Your content needs to make an impact to be noticed.

In the past people expected to pay for content. Now, users get it for free but they are still greedy for interesting new content every day.

Consider what products or services you are going to produce and promote. Then think how you can do this through interesting content that people will want to search for, print and save or forward to their friends.

Content can take the form of long or short blogs (posts about a particular subject, product or service), short tweets on Twitter, webinars, slideshares, photographs, videos on YouTube or Vine, e-books or infographics. This gives you a lot of scope for interesting, visual ways to present what you do.

Think about your three top products or services. Why would someone want them? How would they help them? What would make them buy them? Now think about how you can create three short pieces of writing which you can use as blog posts. Or perhaps you would like to write an e-book and promote it through ten or so regular blog posts that you post over a series of weeks?

“The first lesson of branding: memorability. It’s very difficult buying something you can’t remember” John Hegarty

one minute wonder When you are planning your content, only post when you can answer the three ‘why’ questions: Why this form of content? Why now? Why this channel? If your answers aren’t clear then delay or ditch the idea and think again.

There are so many choices. What about presenting the same information visually? How about laying it out as a PowerPoint? Or as a series of webinars? Would do you want to present? What if you could engage experts to present that information for you and interview them in a collection of videos? Perhaps you are going to present the information in multiple ways. Are you going to do it all at the same time or create anticipation by posting over a period of time?

You can present the same content in long blogs, short tweets, in photos or videos.

1.8
Be aligned

Social media is a two-way conversation. Part of it is driven from the ‘bottom up’ with millions of people all over the world active online. However, your approach to social media needs to be ‘top down’ – driven by a clear strategy – and aligned with the rest of your business.

Your social media strategy will only make an impact on your bottom line results by being part of your broader business plan. Once you have a clear idea of your brand you can create an overall marketing strategy and from that create a digital marketing campaign.

Your social media strategy sits within and alongside this marketing strategy. It should be aligned with your business rather than created in response to one specific social media platform. Of course, the digital world is very fast moving. Every day something is happening on social media and by the end of next year there will be new social media platforms you have never heard of. It’s tempting to just act quickly every time a new app appears, but hold back and always keep aligned with your overall strategy. It is better to be a slow adopter of technology than to produce poor content that puts off potential customers.

one minute wonder Start by thinking about the top five sites which would be useful to you immediately. Then consider how you can achieve a balance between activity around sharing articles and expertise, product-centric posts, reviews, images and videos and how this all fits within your broader business strategy.

Have your brand strategy in place first before you begin your social media campaign.

1.9
Take an inventory

When someone clicks on your account on a social media channel you want them to find interesting content and keep browsing. Then you want them ideally to click on links to your website and other social media accounts. To achieve this you need to be interesting and relevant.

Do you have the knowhow and resources to post a lot of content frequently and consistently? You’ll need to.

What content do you have available right now? Unless you are starting a business from scratch you probably already have a lot of content out there that is usable but just in the wrong form. Check for any existing videos about your organization, product or even employees. It doesn’t matter if they are too long or dull for social media. You may be able to steal extracts or images and edit them into a different form. What about doing a mash-up of photos or bits of video to fun music?

Have you ever done any podcasts or written white papers? Have you taken photographs for annual reports or brochures? You probably already have more content than you realize. What about articles journalists have written about you? Do you have any testimonials from happy customers? Gather them all up.

one minute wonder Keep an ongoing database of your assets. Inventory them on a spreadsheet with headings divided up by topic and type, e.g. photograph, video, etc. Decide where you will use the content. Put an editorial calendar in place with clear deadlines.

Inventory your assets and see what you can revamp, edit and leverage into content for social media. If it is not suitable for now, simply archive it. Even that 1970s film of the employees in old-fashioned clothes may be fun to pull out for the anniversary of the founding of the company. You’re only limited by your own creativity and imagination.

Inventory your assets and see what is usable for multimedia content.

1.10
Do it 24/7

Building a business costs money. At first glance social media looks appealing because it seems cheap. After all, many social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter cost nothing to set up an account. Others like LinkedIn charge for premium services but charge nothing for the basic registration.

If you are not paying in money, you do need to be prepared to pay in time. The first steps are easy. Open accounts under your name or your business name or under the name of the idea, product or service you want to promote.

However, it is not going to be enough to stick your name or business name all over the internet on lots of different sites and then leave them. You are going to need to keep active and investing time and effort, posting blogs, comments, tweets, pictures or videos. Be prepared to show people that it is worth their time paying you attention. If they pay with their attention you need to pay by keeping your accounts active again and again. If there is no regular activity people will have no reason to stick around.

Make sure you thoroughly assess your resources before you begin. Do you have the skills and resources within your company to put the time and effort needed into your social media strategy? It takes time to write content that your audience will want to click on and comment on. If they’re interested in one piece of content they’re going to want to hang around and look for related content. If you can’t supply it, they’ll soon find their way to someone who will.

one minute wonder Think about appointing someone who can spend time monitoring both positive and negative comments from your audience so that you can avoid problems and tailor your content to your audience. This person needs to be listened to at all levels of the organization so that your social media strategy is well integrated.

▪ Focus on timing. Between 8am and 8pm is peak time for posts being read.

▪ Be consistent. Post several times a day (up to ten) on Twitter and frequently on other channels.

▪ Be broad. Post across all your chosen social media channels.

Know your audience and invest the time to keep them happy.