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Dialing The Social Media Police

June 30, 2009 By

Engaging in social media is a risky activity. You never know what to expect from your audience. They can rave about you, but they can just as well cause you the big problems that seriously affect your image. The risk can never be eliminated and the consequences have to be expected, but there are two must-dos that mitigate the risk.

  1. Preparation: Before embarking on social media activities, you should have scouted out your audience. How social media savvy are they? How large is the audience? What is the level their clout? What typical conversations (about your brand) are already taking place? Et cetera. Finding the answers to these questions helps you determine whether the audience is willing and able to embrace you within the social media space. It helps you fine-tune your expectations, priorities and going-in position.
  2. Policy: Create a social media policy for those who will be involved. This creates clarity on what can and what cannot be done while engaging in social media. Prepare not only general guidelines for everyday social media activities but also prepare specific guidelines for special occasions such as publicity dramas and compromised accounts (hackers).

Know what to do when going in. Know what to do once you’re in.

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The Double-Edged Sword That Is Social Media

May 26, 2009 By

There’s been a lot of talk about social media being something companies must engage in. The dramatic increase in people who label themselves as social media experts/gurus has been ridiculous. Often times, they are also the ones clamoring that social media is the ultimate solution for companies to market themselves. Except, it isn’t.

Social media has a funny magnifying effect. If your brand is strong, it will only be enhanced through social media. However, if your brand has a bad reputation, you’ll find that social media is capable of delivering more worms than you thought fit into the can.

Be critical and cautious when considering a social approach to your business. Social media is not the be-all end-all of your marketing.

Align your social media efforts with the strength of your brand.

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Consolidation Is The New Distribution

May 14, 2009 By

New social media tools seem to be launching every day. There are different tools that do different things. There are also different tools that do the same thing. It’s difficult to keep an overview of what’s new and what’s useful. The downside of spreading activities over multiple platforms is that you risk losing control of your content. Moreover, people won’t know where to find you and your content.

However, the importance is focus. By focusing your content on a handful of platforms that meet your content distribution criteria, you take (back) control of your content. Understand how each platform contributes to your social media goals and objectives and select the appropriate ones. The power of social media is that your users will spread your content to other platforms for you.

Focus on the most valuable tools. Take control of your content. Let social media do your work.

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A Little More Conversation And A Little More Action Please

April 28, 2009 By

It’s good to listen to consumers and it’s good to talk to consumers, both online and offline. But as they, talk is cheap. The conversation factor can have a positive effect on your brand image, but it doesn’t always drive the bottom line (and consequently shareholder value). If you don’t know why you’re entering the conversation, stop talking.

The conversation requires proper preparation. Set clear objectives on what you’d like achieve with the conversation. Document the required and invested resources. Measure the outcomes. Evaluate your outcomes versus your objectives and determine your return.

If the return is positive, then that’s great. Continue to engage in the conversation, look where you can improve your return and execute those ideas. If the return is negative, reevaluate your approach by changing variables like tone, content and frequency. Don’t be afraid to pull the plug if results aren’t positive but aim for improvement first.

Plan the conversation you intend to have. Turn conversation into conversion.

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Opaque Transparency

March 31, 2009 By

Online customer reviews are one of the developments that have raised the popularity of social media. Many retailers offer customers the option to write and read reviews about the products they sell. Customer reviews form a great complement to professional reviews. Whereas professional reviews can tell us how good a product is to use, customer reviews can tell us how good a product is to own—and—how good the retailer is.

There is risk involved though. One recent case involved Belkin’s representative of Amazon.com. Mr Bayard not only offered to pay customers $0.65 per positive review of Belkin, he also wrote positive reviews himself using pseudonyms.

Social media can make a lot of a company’s marketing more transparent, but cases like these make it a false sense of transparency. I hope that companies take an ethical point of view when dealing with customer reviews, but there will be exceptions unfortunately.

There might be more than meets the eye. Be critical.

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