How Fast Are You Going?

In the marketing world, minutes could mean millions of dollars lost or saved. Commercials during the Superbowl which typically run in the millions can equal a large brand boost, or a complete failure. As the saying goes, “time is money.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. Keeping this in mind, not only is being part of the social media landscape becoming a growing sentiment, but how fast a company engages in it is also of importance.

While it may seem that everyone company has a Twitter, Facebook and MySpace account, every company is at different stages of their social media campaigns. From the bare minimum to the full-on community engagement, each situation calls for a different ‘gear.’

Get Out Of The Slow Lane

When an organization evaluates the success of their social media efforts, the biggest determinant is the ROI or return on investment. How much was spent to run the campaign versus how much was made. While the truth is that social media campaigns are just about as hard to measure as the ROI of a billboard, one area that organizations need to keep in mind when evaluating their campaigns is the ’speed’ at which the campaign was run. For example, if a Twitter account and Facebook fan page took a week to setup, then you need to take this into account if you are viewing it in a timeline format.

One of the most common mistakes that organizations find themselves facing is deciding that they will involve themselves in social media with a game plan but without a concrete timeline. Whether it is because it was overlooked or lack experience, having a timeline is just as important as having concept ideas. The key to remember here is that there just because there isn’t a ’speed-limit,’ social media is about acting fast. When someone ‘mentions’ you on Twitter, you have short period of time before the door closes. Always hit the ground running.

Cruise Control Is Bad

Another aspect of social media that organizations need to be aware of is getting into ‘cruise control.’ Just because things are doing well, that doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. If you wait till something stops working to do something then you are already too late. Unlike traditional marketing techniques via print and mass media, social media is being re-invented everyday by both users and companies.

Instead of planning campaigns around one central idea, campaigns should involve multiple pieces. A Facebook contest is great, but without something to follow it, it has little long-lasting impact. Remember that social media campaigns need to be wide both horizontally and vertically. Horizontal in that it should have multiple ideas and concepts and vertically in that it should be able to hit different groups of your market on different platforms.

Don’t Run Out Of Gas

Just like in real-life, you will eventually run out of ‘gas.’ Most will come to the point where they exhaust potential ideas and will be inclined to repeat past promotions/ideas. When this happens its important to hit the brakes and to evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t. For areas that haven’t worked well, figure out how this can be improved. For areas that have proved successful, instead of repeating, identify elements that made it successful and apply those principles to new ideas.

Joseph is the Director of Marketing at Viralogy.com & works in social media & sports consulting. Read more about him at http://JosephAYi.com