How brands can get started in social media: a guide
- Image by Corscri Daje Tutti / CristianoCorsini via Flickr
Last week, I was interviewed for an article in the Independent about how brands should be using social media. Whilst some of the other interviewees talked about how brands could use the like of Twitter, I took a step back:
The starting point for any business, according to Matt Rhodes, head of client services at social-media experts FreshNetworks, is ensuring you know what you want to achieve – increased brand awareness, customer retention, a feedback mechanism and so on. “Next, establish who you want to engage – new or existing customers, a certain part of your customer group or more general. Then work out where these people congregate and what will engage them best.”
The biggest mistakes companies make, he says, are implementing a tool-based, as opposed to people-based, strategy and simply choosing the best-known communities. “It may be that you just won’t be able to engage people in, for instance, Facebook,” he says, adding that sustained engagement is also key.
Working out why you want to use social media is an important step for any brand getting started in social media. Rather than just jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, or racing into Facebook it’s important to take a step back. Listen to what people are saying already about you in social media. Think about what you want to achieve. Then experiment with a passion and have a clear process for evaluating what has worked. And what hasn’t.
This week we will be sharing our thoughts on four steps any brand should do when they are getting started in social media. We will look first at buzz tracking and how you can understand what is being said, where and by whom in social media. We will then look at how you should establish aims for your use of social media (and how you could measure these). Only then will we encourage you to experiment (with a passion). And finally we’ll look at measurement and ROI (and how you will know what’s working and what isn’t).
The aim is to give any brand who is looking to use social media (or indeed to use it better) a framework to work through, some ideas and also a lot of questions and decisions that will need to be made. As I say in the Independent article:
The biggest mistakes companies make, are implementing a tool-based, as opposed to people-based, strategy
This week we will help you to not fall into this trap.
You can read the full guide here: Getting Started in Social Media
How brands can get started in social media: a guide … » Twitter, Whilst, Independent, Last » HotBytes:
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19 October 2009, 4:12 amAngela Connor:
Great post and so very important for all of us to share. It’s amazing, the lack of thought going into what exactly the goals are when the goals should lead the actions.
I’m going to read the guide right now. Thanks for sharing!
Angela Connor
19 October 2009, 4:32 am@communitygirl
Torben Rick:
Great post – thanks. Just make sure that you don’t use #hashtags like Habitat!
— http://tinyurl.com/ybnf59w
19 October 2009, 9:59 amSuparna:
Thank you for this post. Looking forward to reading more.
20 October 2009, 10:18 amMatt Bamford-Bowes:
Listen, Activate, Grow. I feel these are the bedrock to any social media activity. Not entirely sure how proposals about activity can be done without first doing research into the subject matter, the people (who you want to target, may not be who you actually should target) and the areas of interest. Only from there can you clearly define the goals of the campaign and thus select the right social area for the brand to play in. Good post Mr.Rhodes, thanks once again.
20 October 2009, 10:24 amlinks for 2009-10-20 | Glorified Monkey:
[...] How brands can get started in social media: a guide | FreshNetworks Blog (tags: social socialmedia social_media twitter) [...]
20 October 2009, 4:04 pmJoe Buhler:
Starting social media activities because there are tools that make it possible without objectives and what the article calls a people based approach is comparable to start advertising without paying attention to what you want to achieve but focus first on whether to use magazines, newspapers, radio, TV or direct mail.
Marketing has never been successful when approached based on the tools available rather than the objectives, strategies and then tactics. Why is it so difficult for people to understand that this has to be the approach for social media is hard for me to comprehend.
25 October 2009, 10:10 pmFreshNetworks Blog: Top five posts in October | FreshNetworks Blog:
[...] 3. How brands can get started in social media: a guide [...]
1 November 2009, 12:42 amHow brands can get started in social media: a guide « Kolbe Crew Blog:
[...] November 19, 2009 by kolbecounts How brands can get started in social media: a guide [...]
19 November 2009, 7:40 pm