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Everyone is Talking (and Blogging and Posting and Tweeting) About It

By Walter Rogers
President and CEO
Baker Communication

Genuine revolutionary events – those that forever alter the fabric of culture – are rare indeed. The American Revolution and the invention of the printing press come to mind. However, those who witnessed the dawn of the social networking era back in 2002 with Friendster – quickly followed in 2003 with MySpace and 2004 with Facebook – can certainly be forgiven for not recognizing that this process for letting college students rate pictures of attractive people or upload demos for aspiring rock bands would be literally rocking the foundations of corporate sales and marketing by the end of the decade. Yet, that is exactly what has happened, and the business world will never be the same.

Though some people seem still not to have noticed, business today is being driven by social networking ecosystems. In the last two years, social networking has rapidly accelerated beyond being merely a digital meeting place where people post pictures of their grandkids or provide regular updates about the temperature on their front porch. Social networks are now being used by customers world-wide to find solutions and meet needs in real time. More significantly, customers initially started doing this with almost no cooperation or support from sales and marketing organizations. It was the customers themselves who proactively formed interactive communities in which product information – including reviews and recommendations – was freely shared back and forth, much like it used to be shared in local neighborhoods when friends bumped into each other down at the corner market.

However, it didn‘t take long for savvy sales and marketing professionals to recognize the opportunity – indeed, the necessity – of joining the conversation and leveraging the power of social networking to reach new customers and drive more revenue. The reality today is that, almost over night, social networking has revolutionized the way companies interact with customers in a way that is transforming every customer- facing activity from marketing to sales to customer support.

In order for your business to tap into these rich social media ecosystems, it is important to understand two critical components of the social media culture. First of all, you need to understand the basic types of social media tools and how they are used. More importantly, you also need to have a well-thought out social media strategy. Let‘s start by taking a look at the typical tools and processes that enliven the social media culture.

Social Media Tools and How They Function

  • Full-function Social Communities – think Facebook, Linked-in, and MySpace. These platforms provide opportunities for people to interact with each other about anything and everything under the sun. People can post opinions, ask questions, share links to other sites and other types of content, and create sub-cultures (also known as discussion groups) where they can meet up with folks who have common interests and share their knowledge and questions with each other. Businesses are taking advantage of these communities to create their own Facebook pages, inviting customers and prospects to join up, and then sharing various types of content with them in interactive ways.
     
  • Twitter – this is a much more immediate and spontaneous way to share messaging and start conversations. Twitter users send short (140 character) messages that are instantly transmitted to everyone on their list of followers (people who have expressed an interest in receiving message from this person). This is a great way to build interest quickly and create buzz around new products, services and events, or simply share quick tips that might benefit your followers. The challenge is to get people to follow you. The basic rule is that the more you tweet, the more followers you get, because if the message is exciting enough, people will "re-tweet" your messages to their followers and keep the conversation going.
     
  • YouTube – this website allows you to post video clips and share them with everyone in the world. Known originally for posting everything from funny personal episodes to excerpts from commercially produced entertainment, YouTube is also a great place for companies to post short videos with content they believe will be of interest or benefit to their customers. The YouTube links to these videos can then be posted on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, or tweeted over Twitter. They don‘t need to be high-production; just entertaining, useful, and SHORT.
     
  • Blogs – short for "web-log," blogs are essentially articles – usually brief – in which the author shares opinions about whatever interests them and then posts the content on the Internet where others can find it and read it. Businesses are now generating blogs from their executives and subject matter experts and then posting them on platforms like Facebook and on their corporate websites, as well as pushing out links on LinkedIn and Twitter. In order to generate the most benefit from these articles, it is important to include ways for readers to comment on the blog and share their own opinions on the subject. When you allow comments, you have essentially created a:
     
  • Discussion Group – These groups are the life‘s blood of the social networking experience. People want to interact; they want to share in the experience in ways that help them derive more benefit from the process. Allowing comments on blog postings is one way to satisfy that need. From there it is a simple step to create designated places on your Facebook page, on LinkedIn, or even on your own website where people with similar interests can gather, post their own comments or questions about issues relevant to the purpose of the group, and exchange opinions and information in ways that provide benefit to everyone.
     

While the above list doesn‘t address the many variations on the themes represented here, this is a very good description of the options and tools businesses should be using to get their message out to customers in ways that stimulate interaction and provide new opportunities to create value for customers and drive new business.

Build the Right Strategy

However, experts are now warning that many businesses are wasting a lot of time and money deploying social networking solutions that produce no response from customers, and therefore create no ROI for the businesses. The takeaway here is that a social networking presence is worse than useless without a proven social networking strategy. Here are five key principles for deploying a successful social media strategy:

  1. Reinforce your brand – there are certain themes, messages, services and products that define who you are. Make sure that everything you post drives home these unique qualities and provides key differentiators that your customer will quickly recognize and appreciate.
     
  2. Be thoughtful about when and how you post content – a social media strategy should be just that – a strategy. You must have a clear and comprehensive plan for what tools you will use, how you will use them, and when you will use them. Some messages are more effective when they are timed to coincide with certain seasons or to respond to certain issues and needs. Don‘t just throw content out there and hope for the best.
     
  3. Identify your audience and speak to them – this principle, along with the next one, form the heart of whether your social media strategy will succeed or fail. Too many businesses are using social media to post content that they care about, turning their social media outlets into nothing more than digital brochures focused on self-promotion. When you do that, the community will completely ignore you. Instead, you must understand the needs and concerns of your audience and learn to think like them. Customers don‘t care what you think; they want to clearly see that you care about what they think.
     
  4. Meet needs – never forget this age-old principle of selling: customers buy products and services because they believe these products will meet their needs. The same is true of social networking communities; your content must speak to them, demonstrate that you understand how they think and feel, and provide opportunities for them to get those needs met. It all comes down to another old and proven principle: VALUE. When your customers and prospects discover that your content offers them real value - interaction, support, useful information, connection, and all the other things that make the social networking experience important to them – they will keep coming back and they will bring their friends with them.
     
  5. Track results and measure the ROI – Insanity is sometimes referred to as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time. When first launching a social networking strategy, most organizations must experiment with a variety of tools and content combinations before they find a strategy that works for them. Don‘t be afraid to experiment, but find ways to track the response/results of every initiative and create KPIs that will help you decide whether you are receiving a measurable, profitable benefit. Generating content takes time and energy; monitoring discussion groups, posting and tweeting can get expensive in terms of the man-hours involved. Don‘t just throw content out there and cross your fingers. Post it, test it, tweak it, keep it or dump it and move on to something else. If you are consistent and rigorous in your tracking and measurement, you will eventually be able to build a relationship with the social networking communities that will be beneficial to them and profitable to you.
     

Action Items

  • Are you currently using some type of social networking tools to build relationships with your customers? If not, which tools and processes would it be simplest for you to launch over the next 30 days?
     
  • If you are already deploying social media strategies, are you satisfied with the results so far? Do you know what areas are performing best? Do you know what areas need to be improved and how to improve them?
     
  • Do you have a rigorous tracking and measurement strategy that can help you refine your strategy and define ROI?
     


Walter Rogers is the President and CEO of Baker Communications. Baker Communications is a sales training and development company specializing in helping client companies increase their sales and management effectiveness. He can be reached at 713-627-7700.

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