When I wrote about the need for a social network like Twitter - several years before Twitter was conceived - I never thought that my days would be filled teaching veteran marketers how to build social media service offerings.
Based on my daily interactions with marketing agencies, I believe we've finally reached the point where convincing companies that they need to be using social media to build awareness, audiences, traffic and leads is almost over.
Now it's about being able to speak to them in terms they understand (rather than in terms our social media peers understand), to explain why a social media strategy is absolutely necessary.
A new e-book from Channel V Media (a HubSpot customer and partner) lays out a good plan for agencies and companies trying to develop a social media plan.
They've spelled out 12 key things you must consider when developing a social media program for your business.
It's a good handbook for in-house marketers, as well as agencies, who are still trying to figure out how to replace their piece-meal campaign-after-campaign approach with a full-blown social media program.
Here's the 12 Steps:
- Audience Identification. If you know who your audience is, you're already one step ahead of the game. The next step is to figure out where they interact online.
- Platform Development & Design. Figuring out how to engage and interact with this audience.
- Brand Campaign Integration. It's possible for a social media program to piggyback off a good brand campaign, but it has to be transformed into its cooler younger brother.
- Content Creation/Coordination. You must create a consistent message.
- Goal Mapping. In other words, how do you measure your success? Is it brand mentions? Traffic? Email sign ups? Leads? Sales?
- Brand Identity. Everyone that is engaging via social media on your team must understand your goals and messaging.
- Audience Attraction. Larger brands like to start spreading the word of their new, fancy and glossy initiatives at the outset, but if your social media program is good, your audience will find them on their own and the spread the word for you.
- Social Media Listening. If you don't know what people are saying about you and your products, their related interests and more, how are you going to interact with them?
- Community & Social Responsibility. Social responsibility is increasingly expected of everyone - and this engagement is an essential part of your online identity.
- Internal/External Community Engagement & Response. Be everywhere. All the time. It's up to you to let people know that you are listening, engaging, helping, and offering solutions.
- Brand Advocacy. Authenticity and transparency are such huge aspects of social media, your social media and management team must be 100% on board.
- Customer Service. Good customer service involves listening (within and outside of social media) and responding appropriately.
Photo: fotopakismo
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Brett Kopf 9:22 AM on June 24, 2009
Very helpful post. I find that many of the major companies are coming to terms with developing a social media plan which is fantastic. Yet, I'm curious how small-mid size businesses are reacting? Either way, these steps are very helpful. Thanks for the great post!
Sofia 10:40 AM on June 24, 2009
Spot on! Interesting article that confirms my thoughts and ideas about modern, digital marketing.
I think that many marketers forget the business and resource aspect of it all, which I think should be highlightened more often. Questions such as; Where do we get resources? What should we do less of in the future? What is our business related goals with our social marketing plan? should be answered.
Ilya 11:57 AM on June 24, 2009
Cool.
(Interestingly, they put the e-book behind a form...isn't that a big no-no if they want to start a worldwide rave?)
Todd 1:54 PM on June 24, 2009
Ilya - Not necessarily. There should be a balance. Hubspot needs to cultivate tangible leads also, ya know. ;)
ilya 6:17 PM on June 24, 2009
@Todd,
(I think you mean Channel V Media, not HubSpot)
I didn't mean to suggest that an offer shouldn't ever be behind a lead form. Just seems ironic that a HubSpot marketing partner, embracing social media and the idea of inbound marketing, would put an eBook behind a lead form, after David Meerman Scott et al have (for good reason) drummed into us the value of starting a world wide rave by releasing ebooks without any hurdles.
Gretel Going 8:29 PM on June 24, 2009
Hi Ilya,
You bring up a good point. David Meerman Scott's advice is to keep the e-book accessible by not putting up a registration form. Hubspot's platform, on the other hand, runs on the philosophy that your e-books (or other forms of free content) are vehicles for lead generation, which requires collecting contact information.
Before I started working with btob clients who demanded we generate leads as part of our work for them, I advised my clients to avoid using forms at all costs in order to enhance their number of downloads. And there's no doubt about it, the registration form does reduce your number of downloads: once we put up a form for our client, we noticed that only 33% of the people who came to the landing page actually filled out the form. At the same time, we wanted to increase their database for continued marketing opportunities so it was the price we paid.
Of course, anyone can easily pass around a PDF e-book once it's downloaded, but the point is if a company (or person or brand) puts that much energy into writing and designing something educational, people will register if they really want the content. And the people who really want the content (rather than those who only kind of want the content) are the more desirable audience anyhow.
So, I guess the meet-in-the-middle conclusion is to keep your forms as short as possible if you decide to use them. For each new field you add, you'll see a lower percentage of downloads.
I hope this helps.
Gretel
Todd 9:17 PM on June 24, 2009
Ilya, yes I meant Channel V Media. Got consumed by the Hubspot branding here. I hear your point on DMS.
Gretel you are right on about the form. Longer the form, the more abandonment. I'd argue that the type of offer and type of sale involved also determines if there is a form and how long it is. Fname/Lname/Email is barely intrusive.
peter caputa 7:50 AM on June 25, 2009
This is a post about social media, people.
What the heck are you talking about lead generation for?
Social media can't be used for lead generation... or gasp... anything that remotely resembles generating an ROI.
This is the 70's of social media. You guys must be a decade ahead... thinking all greedy.
Gretel Going 9:16 AM on June 25, 2009
Oh shush, Peter. You're the lead generation mascot if there ever was one :)
Rebekah Donaldson 12:59 PM on June 25, 2009
What do you think social media includes?
Susan Reed 1:18 PM on June 25, 2009
I don't think "the day is over" to teaching companies they NEED to participate in social media. I work for a large corporation and we are just now investigating what it is, why we should do it, how it works and how to go about getting started.
Gretel Going 1:22 PM on June 25, 2009
Hi Susan,
You're completely right. I always think this stuff is obvious because it's all I read about and do all day, but we've been talking to larger companies who are in the same boat as you. I'm happy to share my thoughts with you if it will help. Just email me...
Gretel
John White 2:09 PM on June 25, 2009
To get back to the original post, I always enjoy reading about and engaging in socnet, but notice that when experts try to explain it in terms that marketers would understand, my eyes glaze over.
Obviously, you need to use them if you want your VP of Marketing to let you go down the socnet path, but the bold terms on each of the 12 points take the fun out of it for me.
Anybody else?
Kate Fleming 2:36 PM on June 25, 2009
Yep, John. Unfortunately, it's either explain it in terms your clients understand or miss out on opportunities to work in a medium you really enjoy.
I think the former is the lesser evil. Of course, when other marketers write this kind of stuff, my first reaction is always "stop over-analyzing it; it's common sense." But I'm not their target audience (just like you're not my target audience), so the flip side is that for you and I it's commons sense; for clients it's not.
But yes, yes, yes...I agree. In fact, we wrote a blog post about the over-thinking-social-media phenomenon last year: "The Mystery of Facebook...Not Really a Mystery at All."
peter caputa 2:37 PM on June 25, 2009
@John White.
I agree that it takes some of the fun out of it.
More negatively, it loses a lot in translation.
But, as Kate says, it's our job to speak their language if we want to be able to help them. Of course, then they have to start learning our language, after an engagement starts.
Jamie Favreau 4:19 PM on June 25, 2009
Thanks for posting this. I am trying to learn just how to map this stuff out. I know how to teach this to people I am just having problems with the strategy type stuff.
Jenise Steverding 7:55 PM on June 26, 2009
At Giving Children Hope (www.gchope.org) we are a charity and have seen an increase in the social responsibility sector. We have a couple of businesses that market that they give us 10% of their profit and we have a media firm that is matching businesses to non-profits. The more businesses can link with social responsibility the more their brand sells (think TOMS Shoes)
Wendy Tarr 3:39 PM on July 01, 2009
Whilst many of us in marketing see the benefits of social media, I feel the challenge is still selling the benefits and getting the buy-in of sales/other stakeholders. This is a long-term, time-intensive activity and will take a while before it's embedded throughout an organisation. Putting together a strategy for social media and clear objectives is essential - and then demonstrating how social media is delivering measurable business results. It needs to become part of the corporate culture and it can take a while for companies to realise that they need to relinquish control. And from a B2B perspective, social media must deliver results - whether that be deepening relationships, reducing advertising spend, increasing your SEO position, etc. Otherwise why invest the time/effort/money?