10 Rules for Social Media Marketing

So you’re taking, have taken, or are thinking about taking the plunge into social media. Good for you. Social media has outstanding business applications.  A recent study by Wetpaint reported that companies with highest level of social media activity and engagement increased revenues by as much as 18% over the past 12 months.  Companies with the least active participation decreased revenue by 6%.

The social web allows you to participate in conversations about your brand, listen to customers, and build brand loyalty.  Far past its infancy, social media strategy should now be a significant component in your overall marketing and communications plan.  Some industry pundits have gone so far as to say that marketers who participate in social media today will be successful tomorrow, and those that don’t… well, they won’t.

Here are 10 easy social media rules to follow:

1.  Be relevant and offer value

When engaging in social media conversations and environments, the relevancy of your message and brand is important. You will want to make sure that your communication is targeted to your audience. Relevancy will play a large role in return visits to your social media platform.

Whether you are engaging customers through mass social media channels, or a custom community, a positive member experience should be your first goal.  Rather than simply offering your customers the opportunity to connect with you, provide them with opportunities to connect with each other to learn, network, share and offer advice. Your members will also appreciate product sneak previews, usage best practices, industry news, and access to other relevant information.

2. Be conversational

Throw out the corporate/marketing speak guidebook when contributing to social media. Your tone should be casual, conversational, authentic, personable, and friendly.  A recent Wetpaint/Altimeter Group social media study found that successful social media marketers have a conversational style as opposed to “the approach of traditional communications and early corporate blog experimentation , which emphasizes messaging and talking points.”

3. Be present

Being present is one of largest challenges for organizations. Social media is a strategy that should be proactively managed- and by more than just one or two people in an organization.  A study by Deloitte found that 30% of online communities have just part-time employees in charge and most have just a single person managing the entire strategy.  Mass social media environments and custom communities will grow exponentially, but they do need monitoring and a team in place to do some heavy lifting during their first months.    Appointing a community manager is a great way to ensure that your strategy receives the attention it needs.  Working with your custom community solution provider is a great solution if you are unable to increase staffing resources. Typically your partner can provide community management tools such as monitoring software and dedicated people resources. 

4. Be Evangelists

A thriving social media strategy usually has an Evangelist at its core. This person, or team of people, is highly visible amongst the company’s employees, customers and prospective customers. They are blogging, tweeting, posting discussion topics, responding to messages, and in some cases even speaking and sharing best practices with their peers. Become an Evangelist for your brand.

5. Be focused

One of the mistakes businesses often make is to try to be everywhere at once.  Choose your social platforms much like you would your traditional media. Benchmark the environments audience demographics, usability, and your competitor presence.  The goal of social media is to engage your customers and prospective customers, not to reach out to as many people as possible. Focus on quality over quantity with regard to the number of environments you engage with. Choose three or four relevant platforms that include both mass social media as well as targeted/community focused social media.

6. Think conversation, not advertising

Social media is a conversation. It changes the traditional thinking about brands and marketing from a story to a dialogue.  Traditional ad messages won’t be effective on social platforms. Instead, customer engagement will occur when the interaction is fluid, informal and mutually beneficial.

7. Build an advocate network

One of the greatest benefits of social media is that it allows companies to build an advocate network.  Identifying brand ambassadors or advocates within your communities will promote your brand and drive traffic to your social media platforms. A tip here, your employees can be your best ambassadors.

8. Initiate, don’t dominate

During the beginning stages of your social media strategy and communities, you and your teams will need to initiate conversation to encourage participation. Once the site takes off, you will find that your community members and fans will play a very active role.  The best strategy for the marketing organization is one of participation, not dominance. Let the discussion occur, but don’t try to take it over. So at the beginning it may be 80-90% you, but once the platform matures it will be 80-90% them.

9. Integrate

Social media is certainly not a magic bullet, nor does it exist in a vacuum.  The best approach to social media is full integration with your traditional marketing plan.  Use traditional media to drive traffic into your social media.  If no specific social media budget exists, resources can and should be taken from traditional media. In fact, Forrester research recently reported that although ad budgets are expected to shrink, social media marketing is expected to balloon to $3.1B from $716M in 2014 and grow at the highest compound annual rate.  Forrester also reported that owned social media assets (blogs, community sites, etc.) are currently the only emerging media gaining traction today.

10. Measure

The last rule is measure. Measuring for social media is different than measuring for traditional web media.  Again, your goal here is not maximum members, fans, clicks, etc. Your goal should be deeper customer engagement and loyalty as well as increased revenue.  Your strategy should include benchmarks that measure key outcomes as well as a plan for ongoing customer feedback.

The social media landscape is rapidly growing and evolving. Conversations about your brand are occurring in real time.  Marketers who participate in the conversation and foster communities for customer engagement realize greater revenue potential and stronger marketing ROI. Have fun and good luck with your social media strategy!