Changes in Social Media can be rapid, and in order to stay on top of your game you must be prepared to learn, unlearn and relearn.

Choosing a platform

Over the course of this blog series on LightSpeed’s Social Media Strategy I have highlighted certain aspects of our approach to the social media platforms that we have decided to actively engage with. These platforms are what we see as the big three: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Each of these platforms requires a unique understanding and offers its own advantages and disadvantages that need to be weighed and considered before you start to engage with their user base.

We have chosen these platforms based on their popularity, the fact that we were already there and that we are extracting value from them. But be warned: There are always new social network popping up, and the popular ones might not be the best for your business.

“You don’t pick which platform you should be on, your customers do.” – Nadia Boucher

Five steps to a Social Media Strategy

Coming up with a strategy for your business’ engagement with Social Media is of the utmost importance. You need a plan and set targets or else you are doomed to fail.

Mike Anderson of Meltwater Buzz shared his Five steps to building your own Social media strategy at the recent Social Media World Forum, and I’ve tweaked it a bit for our perspective:

• Step 1: Listen

They say all Social Media efforts should start with listening. Start listening to social media sites to find out where your customers are and what their needs are.

• Step 2: Define why

Ensure that you know why you are getting involved in social media and what you hope to achieve.

• Step 3: Strategize

Social Media platforms were not created equally. Choose  your channels and define measurable goals before you go to market. Remember that Content remains King and be sure that you have something to say.

• Step 4: Engage

Take action on your insight into your customers. Get involved with them, run campaigns and invite them to participate.

• Step 5: Measure your return on investment

When measuring the ROI of Social media campaigns don’t focus on the amount of followers and likes, but on how your efforts are helping you achieve business objectives.

Be Genuine

So now you have your shiny new Social Media Strategy in place and you feel that you are good to go. Just hold on before you jump online and get some buzz going. Remember that with Social Media it’s not really about you, it’s about your customers.

The tricky thing about Social Media is that you are sharing space with your customers’ friends and family, their real relationships with real meaning. People don’t really want to be marketed at and you don’t want to be the online version of a door-to-door salesman or an annoying telephone marketer. You should strive towards adding real value to the social spaces that you engage with.

Be truthful, be caring and be about the people.

Pieter du Toit of Social Media IQ said it best:

You don’t do Social Media, you become a social company.

Find us on your Favourite Social Platforms here:
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

ADDED

Check out this slideshare presentation from the SMWF:

SMWF Meltwater Buzz & Cell C Present Social Media Monitoring for SM Strategy

My last post for today is about a small module that will help users spread the word about the network. My focus is to create a platform for volunteers to assist in promoting a political party and growing its support base. We are building the following tools to aid the volunteer growth:

• Recruit a friend (includes an address book importer)
• Tell the press / Spread the word – simple form allowing emails to be sent by volunteer under their name to the newspapers
  • Clicking on “spread the word” must bring up the “Send to the Press Form”
  • Form should be populated with the user’s email address.
  • Clicking on the newspaper must populate the “To:” field with the newspaper’s relevant email address.
  • Once the letter is written, the user clicks “send”, and the letter is sent to the newspaper from the user’s personal email address.
• Go-door-to-door – a type of event that calls on fellow volunteers in your area to join and walk around neighbourhood going door to door to discuss and promote the party

Drive community outreach to government and local municipalities

Our aim is to use our volunteers to work for or against parliament and constitutional issues, by helping them generate letters and phone calls to members of parliament, ministers, municipal officials, or other target groups. The tools should let users choose eligible voters and voter groups, identify and prioritize targets, suggest letter text and phone call scripts, deliver letter content by email or fax, and track and monitor the results. We would like promote the outreach campaigns with integrated custom Web pages, outbound email, and more.

Use petitions to identify your most fervent supporters — and to spread the word virally

Create and manage petition campaigns that help you identify your most committed activists, channel their energy, and lead to viral activity and more signups. Petition content and look and feel are fully controllable, and signups are archived and tagged in your customer database so you can quickly build a supporter file around a particular issue of concern. And with “tell-a-friend” functionality, word of your petition campaign can spread around the world at Internet speed.

Speak out to newspapers, opinion leaders, and the public

The “Spread the Word” tool for BuddyPress aims to get thoughts to news editors and opinion leaders, in the real voices of volunteers and supporters. We would pre-populate the system with talking points and sample text, to help make sure that volunteer messages are targeted and focused. The system will keep track of communications so we can follow up where appropriate.

In closing

We need to put the power into the volunteer’s hands and allow them to spread the word for us. As always your feedback is most welcome!

• Featured Option – Grow the Team / Recruit 5 friends – Button says “Recruit Friends” – grow the volunteer database
• Spread the word / Send a letter to the press – Button says “Speak Out”, submit to external blogs or simply social bookmarking
• Go door-to-door – Button says “Help Out” – upcoming events, create an event
• Attend an Event – Button says “Join”, schedule, manage, and promote events
• Make Phone Calls – Button says “Make Calls”
• Blogging – blog on the system
• Join a Group – discussion groups, launch user groups along issue or geographic lines, let users create and manage their own user groups,
• Featured content will target campaigns and programs to interested and motivated groups

We aim to motivate members to carry actions that matter with this social points system, the points per section will need to be displayed in the sidebar. The action center and online community tools set the standard for volunteers engagement and participatory content. This powerful suite of community content generation and social networking tools facilitate a range of real-time person-to-person activities, from user profiles to blogs to online forums, that will leave your site visitors with the feeling that your online community is richly alive with content and commitment.

In closing

We need drive people to engage with the system. An action center helps people to find the tools available on the system… Feedback most welcome!