What steps should my business take before we enter into a Social Media Marketing campaign? We’ve been answering this question quite frequently this past year for our own customers, and it’s a very good question. It’s vital to have your social media marketing strategy in place, and figured out before you launch your Twitter page, or build your Facebook business page.
I’ve been meaning to put an article like this together for some time now, and then BAM! SmallBizTrends.com beats me to it, and it’s an excellent article. Here’s an excerpt.
Enjoy~
Chris
Author Credit: Lisa Barone. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.
You’re going to give this social media thing a solid chance. You’ve heard that social media delivers leads, connects you with customers and you’re confident that you can avoid falling victim to the many social media myths. All that’s left to do is create the accounts hop in.
Wait! Not so fast.
Before you enter in the world of social media, make sure you’re presenting your best possible face. Getting things in order before you take your first public steps will help customers trust your interactions and get things start on the right foot. You wouldn’t show up to your wedding without taking some time to primp, right?
Here are 9 things to do BEFORE you enter social media.
Create a rulebook: Before you step onto that field, memorize your plays. Study the channels you plan to use, listen to the conversation, understand the behavior and create your rulebook for how your company will engage. Identify how you’ll handle common support issues, the tone you’ll take, how you’ll address negativity, how fans will be rewarded, etc. Work up fake scenarios and create a plan for how you’ll deal with them. Look at issues competitors have had in social media and map out how you’ll do it better. The more you prepare, the better off you’ll be. Negative commenters are a lot less imitating when you have a plan for how you’ll convert them to your side.
Assign responsibility: Make it known who is going to be responsible for social media BEFORE everyone stands around looking at each other. Figure out things like:
- Who will be responsible for creating the content, pushing it, talking to people, responding to questions, etc?
- Who will implement any changes/issues discovered through social media?
- How much time should this be taking from everyone’s day and is the number you just came up with realistic or did you just make it up?
Unless social media is someone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility.
Increase your customer support: When you open the social media floodgates, you’re creating a new channel for people to come and get help for issues they’re experiencing. You may need to increase your staff in order to handle that. If you’re a small business, that may mean rearranging your customer support system or, if you’re a little larger, it may mean adding actual bodies. Either way, you’re now going to have a live stream of people coming to you with questions, concerns and things they need fixed. You can’t ignore them. Put systems in place to handle the increases customer service tickets.
Fix your issues: You live in your business. You know that sometimes your service is flaky. You know the number one problem with your product. You know your most common complaints. Do your best to get these under control, or at least on the mend, before you enter social media. People aren’t going to suddenly stop noticing that you could be better just because you’re talking to them. Maybe start your social media effort by TALKING about all the things you’re looking to fix.
Shift your culture: There’s more to being a social company than simply creating a Twitter account. There needs to be an internal culture shift based on creating transparency and authenticity in what you’re doing. You need to be social from inside your organization out and that that may change how you deal with customers, how you treat your employees, and how daily job functions are performed. Make sure you address this before you suddenly have a spotlight on you.
Create content around common complaints: While you’re busy fixing your issues, you also want to create content on your site dedicated to solving, resolving and addressing your most common complaints or anything that may haunt you. By putting the information out there yourself, you give yourself somewhere to link to when issues arise and you also increase the transparency of your company . If you know that sometimes you get negative mentions over a business decision you made, create a page on your site that explains it. The more you can invite people into your company, the better. Answer your customers concerns before they even have them.
Read the remainder of this article HERE at SmallBizTrends.com.
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