Is your company about to launch on social media? Here’s some advice on how to get started, so that you can get things right at the outset.
1. Start small. Social media is massive. There are many platforms – with new ones appearing all the time – and a lot of etiquette, marketing techniques and technical know-how to master.
If you try to take on everything at once, you will probably give up after a few weeks and that would be a shame. Far better to take on a smaller challenge, stick with it, and gradually expand as you grow in knowledge and confidence.
Why don’t you pick one or two of the larger platforms and achieve with them, before taking on others? Or set yourself a three-month period in which you will simply get comfortable on the main platforms, before you set any strenuous goals?
2. Don’t skip the policies (aka the boring stuff). Now that you’ve decided to get going on social media, it’s very tempting to jump in immediately and figure things out as you go along.
Resist that instinct!
Your campaign will be far, far more effective if you work out ahead of time what your social media goals are, what strategy you are going to use to get there, and develop a schedule that sets out, several months in advance, what you are going to write about.
We agree this sounds tedious – but years of experience have taught us that it’s ultimately a much bigger pain in the neck to fix an existing social media programme that has gone horribly wrong than to get it (mostly) right in the first place.
3. Check out what your competitors are doing. This will help you spot gaps in the market, set benchmarks for your own success, and give you helpful insight into what works and what clearly doesn’t.
4. Remember, this isn’t traditional advertising. Many companies that start promoting themselves on social media make a rookie error: they start talking about themselves, telling their new fans and followers (if they get any…) all about their latest products, awards and generally how wonderful they are. (This is called the ‘we we’ game…)
That, after all, is what they’re used to doing on more traditional advertising platforms.
But social media doesn’t really work like that. Nobody cares about you except… you. Social media is about building and nurturing relationships with your customers, by talking to them, listening to them, interacting with them, and above all, being hyper-aware of their needs, their concerns, their interests.
The better you know them, the better you’ll do on social media.
5. Don’t expect great results straight away. One of the most frequent questions we get asked is, ‘how long does this take to work’? The reality is that it can take a good 9 months – perhaps even a year – until your social media programme really bears fruit, bringing in significant leads and business.
Building up proper relationships is not something that can be accomplished in a day or a month – as you know from ‘real’ life. And you won’t necessarily get your social media presence right immediately either. It can take some trial and error until you figure out what works best.
So – experiment away. Have patience. Commit to the long term. And by January 2015, enjoy a significant boost to your company’s reputation and turnover.
Miriam Shaviv is Director of Content at Brainstorm Digital
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- The best way to sell on social media is… not to do it!
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- It takes two (or three or four) to run a successful social media campaign
