Too many times companies jump into social media without direction or strategy. Once they dive into the social media scene and realize the scope of the work is beyond what they expected, they feel overwhelmed and wonder what they are doing swimming in the user-generated pool without a strategic life float.
The first and most basic step of social media is one that is more often overlooked than actually examined and can be one of the best tools available. What is it? Monitoring.
The first step to planning a strategic social media campaign is to listen by monitoring. Take a listen to what is being said about the brand, industry and anything else related. Once you take the time to monitor and track trends, sentiment and who is creating the buzz, analyze the information. This information can be invaluable and help craft the focus of the campaign and potentially address any issues floating out in Cyberspace without a resolution.
Monitoring the sentiment will ultimately help plan how each social media channel can be used. For instance, if there isn’t any talk of the brand on Twitter, the role of the account will be to increase brand mentions (both a mention of the brand and direct mention using the @name). If the sentiment is negative (gasp!), the role of the account will be to individually address issues on a personal basis and potentially use a larger scaled campaign to improve the situation.
Once blogger sentiment is tracked, the results can be useful for learning both the positives and negatives of a brand or reputation. A real-life example is a toy company that patented and sold “giant tinkertoys.” The creator assumed the toy was simply a toy until he monitored the consumer sentiment and found numerous other uses for his “toy.” Human resource directors were using the toys as team building exercise equipment, camps were using the toys as learning devices, and the autistic community found value in providing the brightly colored pieces to encourage socialization within groups. This research instantly opened up an entire new audience he would not have been aware of if he didn’t tape into the chatter.
The creator also found bloggers complaining that one particular piece of the kit broke on a consistent basis. This piece was pulled, recreated, and then shipped to the unhappy bloggers who were surprised, excited and became loyal customers!
It’s this simple: Monitoring + Analyzing + Responding = Increased Business Opportunities and Improved Reputation
Jen Cohen is a social media and marketing maven knocked down many times in 26 yrs. Something Creative http://somethingcreativemarketing.com
Tags: applications, Marketing, Monitoring, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy, the right way
