Get going already

In a recent report from Marketing Sherpa, close to 50% of marketers reported that the lack of knowledgeable staff was the biggest barrier to adopting social media for business purposes. Even though the idea and practice of online social media has been around since the beginning of the internet, new technologies, platforms and rules of engagement have many brands perplexed. And it’s not just brands. Agencies are struggling as well. If you belong to one of the brands or companies that want to jump into social media but don't know where to start, here is our checklist:

1. Define your objective. Social Media is not a strategy but instead a tool to help companies achieve strategies and objectives. A common mistake many companies make is to jump into social media without a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish. The top objectives that social media can help advance include:

• Increase brand awarness
  
• Improve trust and brand perception
  
• Improve customer service
• Sell products or services
• Improve inter-company communications and collaboration
• Improve communications and collaboration with partners, vendors, re-sellers
• Recruit new employees
  

Don't try to do all at once. Prioritize your objectives and then start with the highest priority.

2. Develop a strategy. What conversations do you want to have? Why those? What will those conversations do for your defined objectives? Who are the most influential people in those conversation areas? How will you approach those people and develop trust?

3. Learn the tools. There are thousands of resources available online to improve your IQ but the best, by far, is mashable.com. Go to mashable.com and read the articles and posts, subscribe to their RSS feed, follow them in Twitter and become a fan in Facebook. Your IQ will increase rapidly

4. Watch others and learn from them. Other brands are using social media, some very effectively. To start, follow Wholefoods @wholefoods, Kodak @kodakcb, and Dell @delloutlet in Twitter. In Facebook, become a fan of RedBull www.facebook.com/redbull, the NBA www.facebook.com/nba and Volkswagen www.facebook.com/vw. For a great niche B2B Facebook page see what IBM Research is up to at www.facebook.com/ibmresearch.

5. Listen to what people are saying about you. Conversations are happening right now about your brand. Make sure you fully understand the subjects being discussed and the sentiment of the conversations. A good free tool to start with is social mention www.socialmention.com.

6. Allocate resources. Engaging with people in conversations is not a part time job. To be successful at least one person should spend 40 hours per week. Create the position and source it with someone who has experience. If obtaining approval for a new resource is difficult, then look to outside companies that provide this service. They are few and far between but they are out there. For competitive reasons I am going to mention only one, Woodhouse Agency…

7. Find experts. Depending on the conversations you are going to pursue, an outside expert might be required to add credibility and to establish trust. For example, a technology company that specializes in data security might want to recruit a lawyer that is recognized as a compliance expert.

8. Take stock of existing content. Content is critical to add value to the community being engaged. To quote the guys at TippingPoint Labs www.tippingpointlabs

"Social media boils down to the marriage of two main concepts — content and conversation. Without content, conversation is mere networking. Without conversation, content is dead. It goes nowhere."

After a thorough inventory of existing content determine what makes the grade. Ask yourself, will people find this valuable and is it relevant to the conversations that will be pursued? Can we / should we break it up to be more bite sized?

9. Create new content. There is a good chance that you will have big holes in your content. You might be missing entire subject areas. Create a plan to develop the content and the schedule of when you will share it. The good news is that content does not need to be an expensive proposition. User generated content is free. Blog posts do not cost much. Even online video can be had for significantly less than their broadcast cousins. Because the stakes are not nearly as high as content developed for traditional media, you can create a lot more of it. Frequency is one of the most important aspects of social media so make sure you are loaded with content on an ongoing basis.

10. Establish your policies and procedures. Depending on the company you work for, the notion of engaging with customers can be a scary proposition. What if people say bad things about us? How do I make sure employees don't share proprietary information? Won't competitors check us out and steal our ideas and thinking? These are just a few of the questions we get from companies consider moving forward with social media. They are all great questions and they can all be handled with a policy and procedure manual. This is also a great time to bring in the ever dreaded legal department to get their buy-in.

With this check list in hand, a healthy passion for making it happen and, if needed, an outside company to help you along, you will soon be recognized as an innovator within your company and several promotions will come your way...