Social Media Strategy

Presented by: @AliSABKAR

Founder & President, Social Media Club Bahrain

According to the 2011 Social Media Marketing Report done via socialmediaexaminer.com, 70% of marketers plan to increase their use of social media channels including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. As more companies integrate social media into their marketing and communications plans, emphasis needs to be on creating a social media strategy. Without a strategy, you’ll undoubtedly be sucked into asocial media time sink. So how exactly do you develop this strategy?

Do you work for a large company? Before you develop your strategy, make sure your upper-management team believes in social media and that the first goal is not to sell, sell, sell. In other words, if your business is jumping into social media because “everyone else is doing it” or because you want to sell product rather than to build relationships, please step away from social media. Social media is a long-term commitment and not a marketing gimmick. If you’re having a tough time convincing your team that social media needs to be integrated into your marketing plan, then counter any concerns with these responses to common social media objections.

It’s important for the organization to understand that testing and experimentation are keys to success. This comes naturally to an organization whose culture embraces being proactive and open. The reason why all businesses need to have a social media strategy is because it prevents any misunderstandings and emphasizes why social media is relevant to your business’ overall goals.

Social Media Does Not Work For Business…

“David Bullock, Co-Author - Barack2.0”

Without The Practical Knowledge, Technology, Tools And Know-How.

#1: Determine Your Goals and Objectives Determine who owns social media. Whether it’s marketing, PR, or communications is irrelevant. In a perfect social media world for businesses, social media instills a collaborative approach and breaks down silos. What’s important is to understand your social media goals and objectives and how they tie into your overall company goals. Keep it Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and Timely (aka be SMART!).

#2: Research, Research, and Research Some More Step two of creating an effective social media strategy is research. Develop a list of social media sites where you can potentially engage with people. The list will most likely start off with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a few select blogs and forums. Check out each of the social media sites on your list and do additional research to determine relevancy by searching for your brand name, your competitors, and your target keywords. Listen to what’s out there, identify, and understand your target audience.

#3: Create a Digital Rolodex of Contacts and Content When social media is done correctly, relationships will build naturally. Begin making connections by following the conversation. You can do this by subscribing to blogs in your industry and by making a list of influencers who are relevant to your business. This becomes handy when it’s time to provide content on your social networks.

#4: Join the Conversation to Develop Relationships Now it’s time to start making use of all the research you’ve done. You can start joining the conversation by posting comments on blogs and forums, answering questions on Yahoo! and LinkedIn, joining groups related to your industry and joining Twitter chats. Begin developing relationships by following and friending influencers and those in your industry. Don’t just look for people with thousands of followers; you’ll be surprised by the value that someone with only a couple of hundred followers provides.

#5: Strengthen Relationships It’s easy to hide behind your avatar or profile picture, but face-to-face is incredibly powerful. I think more people are now realizing how underrated the in-person interaction really is because of how far social media has come, allowing so many people to “hide”. Attend offline events related to your industry—not only to strengthen your knowledge base but also to network and strengthen relationships with those you might have conversed with via social media but never met in person. A popular offline event is known as a tweetup.

#6: Measure Results You have goals and objectives, right? This means you should be able to measure your success. Remember, what you measure will tie into the goals and objectives of your social media strategy. Improve brand presence across social channels — The measurement goal here is an increase in the number of followers on Twitter, number of fans on Facebook, number of comments, number of times your brand is mentioned in blogs and forums and so on. Develop relationships for future partnership opportunities — This goal is to keep track of those with whom you’ve connected.

Increase positive sentiment about your brand — The goal here is to convert the number of positive mentions while taking note of negative mentions. Has the ratio of positive to negative comments improved? With the good comes the bad in social media. Get used to it! Increase traffic to your website — Keep track of visitors to your website who come from each of your social media sites. If you’re promoting an event using social media, consider using a unique code to track the campaign. Measuring social media is a never-ending debate. What metrics do you use to measure social media? What objective are you measuring those metrics for?

#7: Analyze, Adapt, and Improve Your social media strategy doesn’t end with measurement; it goes beyond that. You need to analyze your social media campaigns, adapt any new findings into your current processes, and improve your efforts. Testing and experimentation will perfect your social media efforts. As you dive deeper into the never-ending pool of social media, you’ll quickly understand what works and what doesn’t. More specifically, you’ll develop favorite tools to use, realize that there are certain days and times where it doesn’t pay to be active in social media, and come to the conclusion that you still have lots to learn.

Your Brand

Your Target

Engagement Brand Personality Customer Service

Brand Loyalty Product Insights

Service Feedback

Social Media Strategy EARNS

ONLINE and OFFLINE Coverage

Social Media for Business

socialmediaclub.org

When making purchase decisions, would you trust a friend, or an advert.?

What should I pay attention to?

Fans: The size, reach, and growth of fans on your page Engagement: Fans interacting, engaging with your content, sharing, people talking about Community: Managing community, response rate, key influencers, who your core fans are Competition: See all of this in context to what others are doing

What to do ?

Diverse Content

Engaging Content

Call to Action

Simple, Clear Messages

Have a mix of content and include photos, videos along with your

status updates and links

Pay attention to your most engaging content and replicate

Don’t be afraid to ask your fans to like or to take action

Less is more, keep messages simple, concise and clear

More and more people ignore One-way-communication

Social Media Marketing must be approached very different than traditional marketing. You are not selling your business; you are creating relationships through communities. If people feel you are part of their community, they will support you and recommend you to their friends. It is truly word-of-mouth marketing at its best.

Social Media Marketing

socialmediaclub.org

With first-rate internet marketing and clever social media your brand can become a global phenomenon. Understand the tools, use them effectively and be smart. Be a leader and get the success you deserve.

The Social Media Principles

Be Human: Don’t Just Be Human, Be Yourself

Be Aware: Don’t Just Be Aware, Be Smart

Be Honest: Don’t Just Be Honest, Have Integrity

Be Respectful: Don’t Just Be Respectful, Live by the Golden Rule

Be a Participant: Don’t Just Be a Participant, Contribute Value

Be Open: Don’t Just Be Open, Be an Agent of Change

Be Courageous: Don’t Just Be Courageous, Be Willing to Fail

Social media strategies will vary for each business and for each industry. However, one thing is clear: social media needs to have “all hands on deck” in order to be successfully integrated into your company’s goals and objectives. In general, I view social media as a strategy, not a tactic. Considering the social media platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as tactics that tie into the social media strategy. In other words, outline your social media strategy and support your strategy with tactics. Without a carefully thought-out plan, you’ll eventually be overwhelmed with social media and even worse, get burnt out by it

Social Media

Social Media is tearing down the walls that keep us apart and changing the rules that have kept us from being human inside our companies. Success in this next era, the network age, the social age, the knowledge age requires you to change your everything: Attitude, Perspective, Philosophy, Understanding, & Skillset. Chris Heuer, Chairman & Co-Founder – Social Media Club

THANK YOU!

@AliSABKAR