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Social media strategy does not require hefty budget!
Its a general notion that creating and launching a high impact social media campaign require a good amount of budget along with so called social media experts, an army of software developers or a team of SEO people.
Well, these are just misconceptions. You don’t need to spend lacs of rupees to get good follower on twitter or get a decent number of fans on facebook page. However it only requires an involving social media strategy which revolves around the target audience. Your facebook page or twitter background may not require to be highly colorful and technologically advance but it should be appealing and interactive.
The content should be engaging, short and to the point. Videos should be shorter in length. It’s always good to initiate and encourage conversation over the social media rather than just posting your content and not thinking about the interest, expectation and taste of your target audience.
So instead of wasting your time and money on frantically responding to tweets, wall posts, and reading about the social media tools, techniques, and trends of tomorrow focus on your target audience, their preferences, your content, engagement level and of course simplicity.
Share your views.
7 rules before you start engaging in Social Media
Almost every organization has started to get involved in social media. Because social media creates an important link between business and customers and the decision makers. Before you start engaging you should have set of rules ready. Your employees should be trained enough to handle social media along with its predictable and unforeseen circumstances. Apart from that one should do his homework before taking decision to represent your company in social media.
You should consider the following points:
1. Research – Where is your target audience apart from facebook and twitter. Identify which other sites/forums/community are most popular with your audience. Are they present on LinkedIn, which groups, subgroups. The more time you put in research, the less time you have to put in execution.
2. Create a memorable profile – Spend good time in profile creation. Apart from logo and URL you should have comprehensive and interesting description about your company. So the targeted people can relate themselves with your company. Use the same information, photo and logo for all your profiles. So that people who meet you at one site will be able to easily connect with you at another.
3. Listen before your speak– Once your profile is ready, don’t straightaway jump into the conversation with a sales pitch, and start hitting people with messages/promotions. Instead, spend some time in reading messages, status, tweets, posts etc. So that you can make out what product/service they are taking about, what is their problem area, which topics are interesting, what people like to talk about etc.
4. Interaction is the key – The main idea behind people visit social sites is to seek some diversion from their routine work, some entertainment, discuss their favourite topics, socializing with friends etc. So, don’t start straightaway pitching your products/services. Interact with them, share your views, opinions, build rapport and be on the same page before you start any promotions.
5. Be humble and polite – Its always good to be gracious and thankful. Address people by name. Reply/follow up on their comments.
6. Watch what you say – The internet has a long memory. Put the right content in social media. Don’t put obscene, unethical (copyrighted) content just to get attention. Also think before you make any promises to satisfy an irate customer or promoting your brand.
7. Abide to community guidelines – Every community, social media has certain rules/guidelines. You can’t straightaway post web links or promote your product etc. Abide by them. Participate in conversation and be one of them and then smartly perform your promotion activity.
I am sure these points will be helpful for you if you are planning to execute your social media presence.
You can read my earlier blogposts on social media strategy and give your feedback:
Somebody Has to Say It – Successful Campaigns
Social media has become an integral part of every business strategy now a days. This is because of one obvious reason that organisations find their target audience there. I have observed many brands across the verticals as how they are using social media in number of ways. From market research, new product launch to after sales support.
On the other side customers are also getting benefited. Because they can get info about their brands, special offers, issues resolved etc. right at their favourite social networking site. So its a kind of win-win situation for both organisations and customers.
I have jotted down some of the points as what benefits an organisation can get with their presence in social media. It can be:
- To connect with their target audience.
- Brand building.
- Customer acquisition
- Customer Interaction
– With existing customers
– With prospective customers - Customer retention
- Product Info
– New product launch
– Special offers - Community building
- Issues redressals
The purpose could be any of the above, But the ultimate goal is to build credibility and aquire/retain customers.
If you learn how to use social media correctly then you’ll understand where your target audience is and what they are looking for. Now you can make them to look for you by creating right levle of engagement/interaction. So choosing which all social media is suitable for your business and how to approach them is the key.
What social media to choose? Well, it depend on many factors like your vertical, strategy, goal, requirements, expectations etc. Ogranisation generally use the following social media:
Blogs – like wordpress, blogspot, corporate blog etc.
Microblogs – like twitter, tumblr, google buzz etc.
Social networking – like facebook, linkedin, myspace etc.
Location based social networking – like foursquare, google place, facebook places etc.
Social bookmarking – like stumbleupon, friendfeed etc.
Socia news – like digg, mixx, reddit etc.
Photography and art sharing – like flickr, picasa etc.
Video sharing – like youtube, metacafe etc.
Presentation sharing – scribd, slideshare
Document sharing – like google docs, dropbox etc
Reviews – like burrp, talentequity.in
Community Q & A – like yahoo answers, quora
Forums – like citehr, stackoverflow etc.
Social Groups – yahoo groups, google groups
These social media are being used across all the verticals. Many organisations are already utilizing their presence and some are planning to start social networking.
In the next few posts, I will put across some successful campaigns across different industries/verticals.
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