Every employee is a brand ambassador - train them!

Most organizations, whether they’re strictly ‘listening’ or ‘engaging’, are becoming more and more comfortable with the ‘once-terrifying’ world of social media. Many have developed plans, purchased monitoring solutions and hired social media managers. And others are not too far behind.

Organizations have dipped their toe in and are ready for the next step…

But, as organizations have become more comfortable with social media, so have their employees.  Unfortunately however, not all employees have dedicated the same time and resources that their employers have when it comes to social media.

More specifically, employees have jumped in out of curiosity or fun on their own time. They haven’t developed contingency plans, or studied best practices for twitter. They partake in the space on their own time and don’t pretend to be a corporate spokesperson on their Facebook page. (or at least they shouldn’t be - that job is for the social media team.) They may or may not be disclosing information about their place of work and that’s their decision.

There aren’t rigid restrictions for recreational social media use – which is far different than corporate social media.

Okay…..? So what does this all mean?

Your employees aren’t only employees between 9 – 5. They go home and tweet, blog, post, like, comment, pin, etc. at their leisure. And when they do, they still represent your organization in some form or another. They are constant brand ambassadors.

That said, it doesn’t matter how good your social media team is because, ultimately, the social media managers/reps are not the only ones representing your brand online.

So what do you do? After all, you can’t stop employees from partaking in social media activities on their own time.

1. Train them.

- Setup a “best practices” lunch and learn.

- Teach them how to deal with negativity.

- Conduct exercises on social media etiquette.

2. Let them know they are constant brand ambassadors.

- Encourage them!

- Give them a list of Do’s, not Don’ts.

- Make sure they know why you hired a social media team. (Employees are ambassadors, but not corporate account holders. Stress that.)

3. Develop a social media policy for employees.

- “If you choose to speak about the organization, please disclose that you are an employee and that your opinions do not necessarily reflect those of your employers.”

(shoot me a message if you’d like to speak more on creating this for your organization.)

What do you think? Can you add any tips?

AB Social Media Solutions – The importance of having a content plan

Most agree that creating a social media strategy is one of the most important things you can do before getting started in social media. And to be honest, it is.

But there is one important piece to a social media strategy that people and businesses tend to overlook. That important piece? A content plan.

It’s one thing to define your audiences, outline your objectives and choose your tactics, but if you haven’t addressed content, you haven’t completed your strategy.

You’ve heard the expression before – content is king. If you don’t have engaging, interesting and/or enlightening material, it won’t matter how comprehensive your strategy is.

So what do you do?

Before getting started with your social media efforts, develop content that will carry your efforts forward for at least a month in advance. After the month, be ready with your second set of material. Write a block of blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn updates, etc. and then stagger the dissemination of this material for the upcoming days, weeks and months. Doing this will ensure you always have content and a presence in all the forums you outlined in your strategy.

Too many people and businesses start a blog and update it frequently for the first few weeks. Then, they lose steam and their content gets stale. By scheduling your material, you’ll be able to keep things fresh and keep your presence consistent.

There are a few things to consider when creating a content strategy:

1.       Consistency – How often do you want to post product or company-related material? By keeping your material spaced out in a consistent fashion, it will be easier for your fan base to stay engaged.

2.       Relevance – Develop material that meshes well with the time of year or season, for your business or just in general. Think: back-to-school, Halloween, first week of winter, Christmas, BBQ season, product launches, government announcements, etc. etc. (these are just examples and may be irrelevant for your company, but note the formula and adjust accordingly.) Your product/service line-up will help you determine when you should post content.

3.       Be flexible – Don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan. If something important comes up, you can always postpone a planned update and address the current situation.

Always approach content from an outside-in perspective – ask yourself: does this content provide value to your customers/readers? Is the content interesting? Will people want to visit your website, blog, page, etc.?

One last thing, just because you have pre-planned content doesn’t mean you should stop engaging with your followers and fans on a day-to-day basis. Work-in personal tweets and updates and always be there to answer questions.

What are your thoughts on pre-planned content?

Developing a Strategy for your social media plan

Having a strategy for your social media efforts may be one of the most important factors in your overall plan. Objectives help determine what you want to accomplish, but how you will achieve success resides in the overall strategy.

Once you’ve conducted a situation analysis, determined your audience, established your objectives, it’s time to plan a strategy.

In creating your social media strategy, you need to ask yourself one crucial question: 

How do you plan on reaching your objectives?

A strategy should be more than just engaging in social media. Sure, that’s the action, but it’s hardly a repeatable and bulletproof strategy. Also, don’t confuse “strategy” with tactics. Twitter, facebook, blogs are all examples of tactics NOT strategies.

Here are a few good strategies:

-> become a credible source in the industry

-> position yourself as an industry leader

-> motivate people to do something

-> advocate for a cause

-> reach a new demographic

-> raise awareness about your brand or products

-> create buzz around a new product

Once you determine your strategy, you can start thinking about which tactics will help you carry it out.

For example: If your strategy is to become an industry leader, you need to establish yourself/your brand as a credible source of information. You do that by providing thoughtful, creative, informative and interesting content.

In this case, a blog or micro-site/hub would be a successful tactic. Here you can establish a credible voice, feature ‘thought leaders’ from the industry in a guest post and respond directly to consumers’ concerns.

Simply put, strategies help ‘position’ your company online. Once the ‘position’ is solidified, your objectives will be more easily achieved. As well, strategies help determine tactics and will ensure your social media plan is on-track.

Defining Your Social Media Plan’s Objectives

Defining and setting objectives for your social media presence may be the most important step in creating a solid plan.

With objective setting, don’t think of it as HOW you’re going to ‘do’ social media, think of it as WHY you’re engaging in social media.

Too many companies jump into Facebook or use Twitter without defining their objectives. In doing this, these companies aren’t maximizing their performance online; they are wasting time and resources without really seeing any return on investment.  

So what does objective setting mean?

It means asking yourself and your team WHY the company needs to be using social media. By asking WHY, it becomes much easier to develop strategies, choose tactics and assess performance.

Here are 3 steps to help you develop objectives:

Ask yourself:

1) What do you want to accomplish?

- Do you want to increase the number of sales leads?

- Reach a new demographic?

- Strengthen customer service?

- Position your company as an industry leader?

- Promote your products?

2) What does success look like?

- Increase sales?

- Build a stronger following?

- Change brand perceptions?

- Satisfy customers by making positive connections?

3) How will you measure success?

You’ll need to periodically assess the performance of your social media efforts in order to keep the C-Suite happy and keep your team on track.

Ask for customer feedback, take polls, look at the sales figures and assess online sentiment. All these methods will help you quantify and qualify your efforts.

There you have it – objective setting 101. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Target an audience (second part in your social media plan)

Having specific objectives, a content strategy and a strong handle on the tactics is important to your social media plan.

 But, recognizing your audience is critical to your social media plan.

 Your audience will ultimately dictate the success of your business – you can’t make a buck without enticing people to buy your products or services. Even more importantly, you need to target the RIGHT people and know where to invest your time and resources.

 What I’m trying to say is that making $1000 via social media is great, but if it cost you $900 in resources to find those deals, you haven’t done that well. 

 So make sure you know who to target and speak with from the start. Don’t waste time and resources trying to find your audience while your plan is being executed. Sure, you can alter the ‘audience focus’ down the road, but ensure you know who you are targeting before you get started.

 How do you define audience?

 There are a few ways to segment and target your audience. It’s not enough to just say I want to reach “customers” or “the public” or “men.” After all, you aren’t defined as just “human” and neither are your audience members.

 Demographics

- Age?

- Gender?

- Income?

- Race?

- Education?

 Psychographics

- How does they think?

- Do they care about form or function?

 Geographics

- Where are they located?

 Great, but how do I find this stuff out?

Monitoring! This is where you really need to make use of your ‘listening’ tools. By listening to the online conversations you will start to understand where your best consumers (and thus audiences) are hanging out.

 Sure, you won’t be able to answer all the above questions in the Demographics and Psychographics sections, but that’s okay.

 As long as you start to see trends and patterns in your target audience, then you’re golden.

 Once you figure out your target, continue developing your plan with your audience in mind.

 We’ll talk about objectives next week! Stay tuned!

The first step in a social media plan – conducting a Situation Analysis

Last week we provided the framework for creating a comprehensive social media plan. In total, we offered 9 steps you should include in your plan before setting out.

And as promised, we’ll now take a closer look at the first step in that 9 step checklist…

Situation analysis – Looking at your business objectively

          1)  Listen first - How do people view your company?

To do this you’ll have to start listening to the online conversations and general sentiment towards your brand, company and products.

There are 2 ways to do this – the free way or the paid way.

Free –

Download Tweetdeck and add ‘search’ columns that cover everything from your brand name to the products you offer. Start following these streams and analyze the online sentiment. Are people happy with your company or brand? Are there questions or concerns about the products you offer? Once you have a good sense of the online sentiment, you can start setting objectives and answering questions or providing better customer service.

Go to Addictomatic, Social Mention, Blog Pulse and Twazzup and add your company’s name and products to the search terms. These sources will provide a comprehensive look at how your brand is perceived online.

Since these sources are free, they won’t be overly comprehensive; you’ll get a sense of the general sentiment towards your company but you won’t necessarily see ‘who the influencers are’ and/or the demographic stats of those people talking about your brand.

The ‘free method’ is a relatively effective way to monitor the online conversations, but they do require some patience and some legwork.

Paid –

Sign up for a paid social media monitoring service. Radian6 and Sysomos are two of the best paid services out there. These tools will give you everything you’d want to know about how your brand, company, products and industry are perceived online. Plus, you’ll get demographic stats of everyone who talks about your company.

Paid sources are extremely efficient and effective, but they do cost money.

My advice? Start using the free sources and then as you get more familiar with where your company appears online, you can move towards a paid service.

One other key point to make – look at what your competitors are currently doing online, follow best practices and then find ‘untaped’ areas online. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

            2)      Conduct a S.W.O.T. analysis of your company

Take a step back and objectively analyze your company.

Strengths

- What is your company currently doing well?

- What’s unique about your company and/or products?

Example: providing great customer service

Weaknesses

- What is your company doing not so well?

- What area does your company fail to meet industry standards? (product, price, promotion)

Example: lack of resources for promotion

Opportunities

- What can your company do to improve?

- Is there an ‘untapped market’ your company can pursue?

Example: customers want more info about your products

Threats

- What can go wrong if you invest in a social media campaign?

- Will social media have a negative impact on your brand image?

Example: potentially alienating your loyal customer base

         3) What are you willing to invest in social media? (resources, staff, time)

Ask yourself, what is your company willing to invest in a social media plan? (both in the strategy development and execution.)

- Do you have the resources, staff and time needed to develop and execute a social media plan?

Once you address these 3 steps, you’ll have a better understanding of what your company needs to do in order to succeed in social media.

Then, when you’re ready, you can start developing a solid social media plan. You will then need to address objectives and figure out ‘why?’ your company should be involved in social media.

Does this all make sense? Have we missed anything? Are there any other good ways to conduct a Situation Analysis?

I’d love to hear your thoughts….

Forget broad reach, think tight grip

Companies interested in using social media for broad promotion of their products and services will fail. Period.

Let me clarify - fail in their social media efforts. They may still be doing other things really well.

I keep saying it, but it needs to be hammered down a little more; especially after hearing Mitch Joel validate my opinions at a conference in Toronto last week. (He really is a brilliant marketing mind.)

With all the freedom that social media and the ‘new web’ have given us, why would we be interested in seeing self-promotional corporate advertising in our favourite forums? We’re not.

In traditional forms of advertising, companies broadly promote their goods and services to the masses, hoping to incite some people to catch-on and make a purchase or two. It’s a one-way street; content flows at you and short of closing your eyes, you often can’t avoid it. This style of advertising is fine for highway banners and bus shelters, but it does not work for social media.

(note: even when you segment markets and target particular groups in specific venues/places, you’re still broadcasting ads because the ads are reaching out to people; people are not voluntarily looking for the information.)

With social media, people can produce and consume content of their choosing. If they want to learn about a new shoe design or flavour of gum, they’ll find it. Social media has granted us the freedom to be our own network executive, dictating the programming and allocating the resources and timeslots.

Here’s a simpler way to look at it:

Traditional ads – information reaches out to you.

Social media – you reach out to information.

There is no right or wrong way and both have a place in the marketing mix. But when it comes to social media, you can’t put a square peg into a round hole – pushing content at consumers doesn’t work.

So what’s the right approach for a social media strategy?

Be where your customers are.

You need to anticipate and research where potential customers are ‘hanging out’ online. Then, meet them there and give them an engaging or positive experience.

Know that before we make purchases, we often conduct research online and thus, you need to make sure you have some form of online presence to let people make thoughtful decisions about your products. As long as they can find the right information to make a purchase, you can guarantee some results.

What does this look like? Monitor the online conversations and be ready to connect with those people who have expressed an interest in your brand, products, services or industry. Because these people have reached out for information regarding some form of goods or service you offer, they will be more willing to accept the information and make an educated purchase.

Let the audience dictate where you spend your time and efforts. If people are looking for product info in a particular forum, meet them there and engage with them. Give them a valuable interaction and they’ll think highly of your brand. Just call it digital PR.

One more way to think about the difference between broad ads and social media engagement:

Traditional ads – similar to cold calling, hoping somebody on the other end is listening.

Social media engagement – it’s like waiting for the customers to come to your house and ring your doorbell. Then, all you have to do is answer the door and give them a nice experience.    

Sure, with the traditional form you can reach out and broadcast to millions of people (cold call) but only a fraction may be interested in the message. You may even run the risk of alienating those who couldn’t care less about your products.

With the ‘listen and actively respond approach’ of social media engagement, you only target a fraction of the people, but you should rest assured that those you have targeted have already expressed interest in your company.

Let’s just say that with social media, always think Tight Grip and not Broad Reach.

What do you think?

5 simple ways to increase your company’s social media presence, without using social media

So your company has jumped into the world of social media and everything is going well. Your content is rich, you’re monitoring, measuring and you’ve hired a community manager to make sure things are running smoothly on a daily basis.

But, good content and a solid strategy will only take you so far. To really kick-start your social media campaign and increase your company’s social media presence and following, you need to leverage some simple, traditional forms of promotion to maximize your social media efforts.

What does that mean exactly?

It’s simple; your social media campaign shouldn’t exist within a vacuum. You need to use your other promotional and communications efforts to boost your social media presence.

Here are 5 simple ways to increase your company’s social media presence:

1.       Email blast 

Surely your company has a database of contacts that have either expressed interest in your company or have you somewhere on their radar. So, make use of it. When your social media efforts start rolling and you’re proud to share what you’ve started, send a simple email blast to all your contacts, informing everyone of your new microsite, blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc. Then, ask them to follow you and engage with your company online.

2.       Pepper your company website with links 

Use your existing corporate site to help promote your new social media efforts. Add links on your homepage, About Us page and Contact section to your social media products. 

“For more information on …….. visit our Facebook page.”

“Follow us on Twitter for more product information and promotions”

Etc.

3.       Update your business cards

You hand out cards all the time, so why not make them work a little harder for you? Someone willing to accept your card will probably be willing to follow or visit your company online. In the contact area of your business cards, add your Twitter handle, Facebook page url, Blog url, Microsite url, LinkedIn profile, etc.

4.       Make use of your digital email signature

Your digital email signature contains corporate info and your contact information, so why not add your Twitter handle or Facebook page? It’s quite simple and most people receiving your emails will see what social media sites you’re currently using. You increase your presence online with every email sent.

5.       Offer promotional incentives

Whether your company offers products or services, you are obviously selling something. And since customers love sales, offer a 15% discount; a buy-one, get –one deal; or various other promotional coupons in exchange for a simple retweet, like, link or friend request. Even if you only have 100 followers on Twitter, send out a tweet that says something like “RT this and receive a 15% off coupon for ……” Now, that tweet may only reach 100 people, but once retweeted, your presence is exponentially expanded. Then, just send that Retweeter a coupon via Direct Message.

See, it’s really quite simple to leverage ‘things you’re already doing’ to help increase your social media presence. You don’t need to be extra-social-media-saavy to increase your online presence.

Can you think of any other simple ways to increase a company’s social media presence?…..

Put the social in social media… after all, it’s just a party.

Since we’re still at the beginning of our social media journey together, I think I should talk a little more about social media theory. Don’t worry, we’ll get into developing winning strategies and fool-proof plans in the coming weeks.

But, for now, let’s discuss one aspect of social media theory that I think is critical in helping you understand what social media is all about.

It’s called social media for a reason – it’s about being social. Too many companies and people are scared of jumping into the world of social media because they think the technology and tools are too difficult to understand.

I’ve heard everything from “I can’t do social media because I’m not a techy!” to “social media looks difficult; I don’t know if we can handle the computer requirements.”

Sure, those are some valid statements, made by some really intelligent people. But what these statements show is that some people are looking at social media all wrong.

Instead of looking at social media as a technological forum meant for tech-saavy 20 year olds, start looking at social media as a cocktail party… in which everyone is invited. All you need to do is sign up for some services like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Quora etc. and start conversing with people. These tools have been designed for mass consumption, which means they are straight-forward and user-friendly.

Simply put, anyone with a shred of intelligence can get started and can jump right into the world of social media. It’s okay to “not know what you’re doing” at the start - these tools make it easy for you to walk around, learn the in-and-outs and start connecting.

Think trial and error, not crash and burn.

So let’s talk more about this so-called cocktail party. When you go to a party, what’s the first thing you do? Well, you probably hang your jacket up, smile, walk around, find an area to have a drink and make small talk with the people around you.

That’s exactly what you should be doing with social media. Enter the party room, get comfortable, find your niche or a desirable topic and start making small talk. Soon you’ll be engaging with friends, sharing information and partaking in meaningful conversations.

You don’t go to a cocktail party and start analyzing the structure of the room, the lay of the floor or the stability of the light fixtures. So why would social media be any different? It’s not. Forget about learning the nuances of the technologies or the programming of the tools. Just engage and find your way around the room/forum.

You’ll find your way around in no time. Then, when you’re comfortable with the tools, you can start choosing your network and using social media to meet your business goals.

Another side point I should make is that when using social media for business purposes, don’t just constantly spew corporate jargon and enter the forums with pre-packaged key messages. Nobody wants to hear cold, faceless corporate propaganda. Instead, talk about your industry, share opinions and engage with potential consumers. Then, when you have a network and some followers, you can add the odd promotional piece to the mix. Your network would then be more likely to click your links and visit your pages. Why? Because you’ve added value to the conversations in the past and are now a respectable social media friend.

Again, think of it as a cocktail party. The guy that comes to the party with pre-planned pickup lines and only talks about himself is the guy everyone tries to stay away from. The same goes for social media.

In short, don’t fear the technology of social media. Instead, focus on the social aspect of the media.

Remember that it’s a party and you’ll be successful in no time.

Does this make sense? What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your opinions…..

There’s more to a social media strategy than just using some tools

I’ve heard and seen at least a dozen examples of people claiming to have a social media strategy when really all they have is a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account. Does this include you?

If so, please read on.

Sure, it’s great that you’re engaging with an online community and using some really effective tools for their intended purposes. Heck, you may even know how to listen and respond to your customers. But to tell you the truth, this does not constitute having a social media strategy.

Using the tools, for the sake of using the tools, doesn’t qualify as a social media strategy. Period.

Don’t get me wrong, tools are great and without using them you wouldn’t have a strategy. Simply put, the rubber-meets-the-road through the tools. Yet, we can’t forget that they alone do not comprise the strategy itself.

Here’s an analogy that will hopefully hammer home this point.

The tools are the front-line soldiers in the social media war zone. The strategy is the commander of the troops, put in charge of defining the strategy and working towards the set objectives. You need soldiers to win the war, but without the commander or leader, your soldiers would be running around aimlessly. Soldiers (tools) don’t control the direction of the army; they just provide the tactical support to the larger strategy.

Does that make sense?

Hopefully it does.

Okay, so if tools aren’t the strategy what does a strategy consist of? Well, lots of things actually.

To develop an effective strategy you need to address a few things before your tools can get you started on your social media adventure.

Here’s what you need to do:

1.       Assess the current climate of your business and/or industry.

- Who are the thought leaders in the industry?

- Who are your main competitors? What are they currently doing?

- What is the general sentiment towards your business and/or industry?

- Do you have the resources and staff dedicated to carrying out the strategy?

- Perform a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of your business.

2.       Determine your objectives.

- What do you want to accomplish?

- What are your goals, both short term and long term?

- What does success look like?

 3.       Who is your audience?

- Who are you trying to reach?

- What is the demographic?

- Determine your primary and secondary audiences.

 4.       Then, you can address your strategies.

- How will you accomplish your objectives?

- How will you reach your audience(s)?

- How will you produce content?

- How will you build a loyal following?

- How will you convert people into customers?

 5.       Now, you can establish the tactics and pick the tools.

- Which tools will help carry out the strategy and speak to the right audience(s)?

- How will you use those tools?

- How will content be derived?

 6.       Establish the timelines.

- How long are you willing to devote to the strategy?

- How often will you use your tools?

- Set up checkpoints and then figure out a projected end date.

7.       Measure your success.

- How will you measure outcome?

- How will you quantify your results 

- Put in checkpoints and celebrate your successes (even if they are small).

As you can see there’s a lot more to a strategy than just being able to use tools.

Over the coming months we’ll dissect each section of the overall strategy. So stay tuned.

Have I missed anything? Let me know if there’s something we’ve overlooked….