Photo by joey.ganoza
One of the first things I ever learned in marketing was that “cool” in and of itself is not a strategy. Sure, it might turn a few heads. But will they remember what it said about your brand? Will they remember your brand at all? Unfortunately, “cool” rarely works when it comes to translating advertising into sales. Neither does “technology;” I remember the first augmented reality demonstration I saw, but I can’t tell you what the product category was, much less the brand. Similarly, “social media” is not a strategy.
Don’t misunderstand me. Social media integration is something many businesses ought to be considering as a potentially prominent part of their larger marketing plan, but it is so easy to think that being on social networks is the strategy itself. Unfortunately, it’s a much bigger picture. Social media is the means to the end, the channel for your message, so it’s important to consider what you want to say before taking the leap.
The good news is that social media, by definition, means you have the chance to communicate with your audience on a very personal level, but just like in any relationship, you have to have something to share. This requires a strategy. More specifically, your communication should be helping to solve a specific business problem.
So while the temptation is to say that you merely need to get on these social networks, it is important to determine how they can help you solve a problem. The benefit to these networks is that they consist of people who actively want to have conversations, and even organize themselves by what they want to talk about. Services like WeFollow help you find the specific audiences you want on Twitter, and Facebook fan pages, groups, and user-submitted information can help you segment on the site. So if you’ve decided that the business problem you want to go after requires conversation with any of these specific audiences, you’re in luck.
But what do you do then? Particularly in cases like Twitter, where asymmetric follow means there’s no guarantee of an audience, you’ve got to actually convince fans to want to interact with you. Part of doing that is laying out a legitimate strategy for your output that provides legitimate value, whether it be entertainment, customer service, a mass opportunity for your consumers to come together, a discount, or something else entirely. But before you can decide what that strategy is, you also need to consider what business problem you want to solve, and this conversation ultimately should be media-neutral. But also remember that the strategy that you employ in social media should align with any other communication you have with your audience; your social media presence should be part of your larger marketing plan.
The easiest part of that is that because social media is interactive, you can easily link to your other communications—a TV commercial on YouTube or a microsite. So if you’re considering making social media part of your marketing, or you just need to revamp your efforts, decide what business problem you want to solve and see how you can use social media to leverage your solution.
Claire Grinton is a brand strategist and writer based in San Francisco. Find more from Claire or contact her at claire[dot]grinton[at]gmail.
i belive in ideas . good ideas don’t need much strategy.