Smart PR

Six Steps to Social Media Greatness

It’s no secret that social media can help build your company’s brand – whether your business is consumer-driven or B2B – and building positive brand awareness helps drive revenue. But, social media isn’t like a machine that you can simply

Source: 4socialmediaconsulting

start and put on auto-pilot. It takes time, focus and dedication to smoothly and effectively run the engine of social media. So before you jump head first into creating a corporate Twitter feed, check out our Six Steps to Social Media Greatness:

1. Be consistent. Update your Facebook page, blog and Twitter feeds often or you’ll lose followers. It’s not enough to simply create a page and then leave it dormant; doing so could actually harm your brand more than help it.
2. Remember that social media is 24/7 – be prepared to tweet, respond to comments and post Facebook updates at night and on weekends.
3. Always pay attention and always listen before engaging; social media is about interacting, not broadcasting.
4. Be creative if you want to get noticed and keep people engaged. Add videos, contests, surveys or microsites. For example, Samsung’s Esteban Contreras and his team created a tab on their Facebook page to incorporate their mobile website, which helped engage customers.
5. Remember the 4 E’s*
1. Engage
2. Educate
3. Excite
4. Evangelize

6. Respond to negative comments, don’t ignore them. To effectively engage people posting negative comments about your brand, create separate forums that will help to drive these people away from your fan pages.

Finally, keep in mind that mobile is the next big thing. Companies that aren’t already doing so should start thinking about a mobile strategy and how they can leverage mobile capabilities to engage with customers. More on that in an upcoming post…

*The “Four E’s” were developed by Jeff Hayzlett of The Hayzlett Group.

 By Melissa Baratta, Managing Director

October 28, 2011 at 1:03 PM Leave a comment

Google+ – Does it really matter?

This week I attended an IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) event on a topic that seems to have everyone buzzing…Google+. The panel was led by three social media gurus – Esteban Contreras from Samsung, David Stark from IBM and Jeff Hayzlett from The Hayzlett Group.

Google calls Google+ a social networking “project” that will rival Facebook. It’s still in beta and has about 25 million users so far. While everyone at the event agreed that Google+ has reach and importance and is influencing the other major social networks (case in point, Twitter and Facebook are both making significant changes to their platforms), the question remains whether Google+ will actually be a winner.  Why? First, Twitter and Facebook had far more users after three months than Google+ currently does. Second, each social network has a particular purpose, and we still aren’t sure where Google+ fits or whether it will be relevant. There are a few reasons for this:

• Google+ is straddling everything from business to personal – what is the value add that doesn’t already exist on Twitter or Facebook?
• Users have a strong comfort level with established platforms, but not with Google+
• Three’s a crowd. How many platforms can you really put effort into? Look what happened at Netflix when many of their customers became annoyed by having to register for two services that were once combined. Similarly, when do social media users experience social overload?

That said, Google is a formidable player and some are projecting Google+ to be the second largest social network by next year. Thus, panelists said that companies do need to be ready to join as soon as Google launches company pages. How do you prepare for a new platform? The panelists had a few good tips, which can actually be applied to any social media platform:

1. Remember that social networking is a means to an end; don’t participate just for the sake of participating.
2. Think about your strategy – and simply deciding to participate is NOT a strategy.
1. Determine your goals and rules for participation. What’s your governance structure?
2. Base your strategy on what kind of value Google+ will drive for your brand.
3. Be prepared to truly engage with people, far more than you do on Facebook and Twitter.
4. Decide which platforms are most important to you. Not every company has the resources to dominate every platform.
5. Decide whether Google+ is an offensive or defensive tool for your brand.
6. Determine your metrics for ROI!
1. Remember that simply counting fans, followers and circles isn’t effective.
2. Yes, be aware of those “shallow” metrics, but also monitor what the platform is doing for your brand. Having tons of users in your circle doesn’t matter if you’re not really engaging and it’s not helping you meet your brand goals. There is currently no cut and dry way to measure this, but each company should regularly evaluate their social media practices in comparison with how quickly they are reaching their brand goals – as Esteban Contreras said, social media should help build your brand, and building your brand should help drive sales.
3. Think about both short-term and long-term objectives.

One of the most interesting comments from the night was, “Be prepared to get it wrong.” You won’t always have a plan for everything that happens in social media, especially with a new platform, so plan for the unexpected and be prepared to think on your feet.

- Melissa Baratta, Managing Director

September 22, 2011 at 4:37 PM 1 comment