Social media is a fact of 21st century life. Its changed the way we do business and has been a boon for many hard-pressed advertising departments. But the technology often underperforms; the ROI just doesn’t stack up, and its a failure to understand not only what social media can do, but also what it can’t that leads to this sorry state of affairs. After all, social media is just an umbrella term for a set of internet-based tools that enable loads of people to interact, create and maintain contacts and mutual connections with the minimum of expense, which is often only time. The tools involved are very different from each other, and often very transient, being replaced by the latest ‘new kids on the block’. Consider MySpace, one of the early pace-setters. Seemingly unchallengeable and then FaceBook came along from nowhere and captured nearly half a billion subscribers. The success of Twitter spawned many rivals, such as Plurk and Yammer, but none have managed to know Twitter of its number one spot. Some of the tools are predominantly message based, whilst others encourage more transactional communication and engagement with an audience. For business, stimulating conversations with prospects must be a prime objective of any social media strategy. Getting the mix of tools to fit a well defined strategy which is individual to each organisation is the cornerstone on which a successful social media campaign should be built. There are five key components to developing such a strategy….



1. Research your demographics. You need to know your potential customers. Age, employment, social status, affiliations are all essential characteristics you need to be aware of. Demographically based targeting ensures your message reaches the heart of where it needs to be rather then just forming part of a scattergun approach.

2. Get your mix right. Its not enough just to tweet every hour. You need the right balance of inbound and outbound communication, which gets your message out there, and at the same time, encourages engagement and dialogue. We use outbound tools to tell the world what we are about and what’s going on, and the initial Social Media boom rode on the wave of this type of tool. However, this constant stream of information and promotion can turn your customers right off. So inward bound tools which encourage interaction and allow information gathering must be a part of any strategic tools mix. In fact, the mix needs to be biased in favour of inbound traffic which can inform your future business operations.

3. Avoid the dip. Its easy to dismiss your efforts with social media after a while as just not worth the effort. Sometimes, its difficult to see a decent ROI at first, but perseverance is needed. After all, Rome was not built in a day! I recently started a conversation on LinkedIn about using social media for doing business and the replies all suggested that business flows from dialogue and established communication and communities on various social media platforms. Again, the right mix of tools is vital here. You need to engage !

4. Following you is not the same as engaging with you. If folk just absorb your outgoing traffic without getting involved in your communities, they are unlikely to consider doing business with you. Member statistics don’t tell you much except just that; who is following you. Analyse how many followers you engage with, and why those that don’t do not. Build quality relationships by positioning yourself as a subject expert or guru. Answer questions and curate content in your field. Become a first point of call for those looking for help or information.

5. Get the tribal thing. Social media has morphed to a stage where different tribes congregate on different sites. So check out your target audience and follow them to their on line homes. More women use facebook than men. Younger folk tend to use MySpace. LinkedIn positions itself as a business to business network. The social media revolution has in truth had the opposite effect to breaking down tribal barriers- its actually resulted in more segmentation of the on line society. So define and appeal to your group. And even better, build your own tribe. Folk want to be led.



In summary, don’t try a scattergun approach. It's the same as a mass mailshot or spam-mail campaign. Define your market, target your efforts, and engage with your tribes. High quality-low cost conversations are the aim, with, hopefully, business to follow. Know the difference between inbound and outgoing media and get the mix right. Because the only alternative is a scattergun mail shot approach. And ask yourself this…just how successful are they, and what’s their ROI ?

And have a look at Seth Godin's book, Tribes. We can thoroughly endorse his core message!






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad