It seems with all the news around about social media and its growth that we have known about it and how to use it for ages. The facts are that only two years ago nobody really saw the potential and that marketing companies and agancies weren’t taking it seriously.
It you look at Google Insights and look for the search terms you can see the affect and growth.
Growth of social media strategies
Prior to July 2009 nobody was even searching for social media in the sense of marketing strategies, now its one of the fastest growing search terms. We at Volcanic have been taking social media seriously since the inception of Facebook indeed Rob was one of the early adopters of the service when it was rolled out to Manchester University.
So we have been working for a number of years now, developing tools to exploit the marketing potential and helping all kinds of businesses to develop new marketing strategies to enhance their businesses and to take the opportunities afforded to them .
So what does a Social Media Strategy involve?
1. Research – Before you start your social marketing, its always good practice to undertake some research by looking at which are the best social networks to use and uncovering where target audiences are active, how they are interacting and engaging with each other and brands, what terms they are using, etc. This will save you time and money later.
2 Targets – You need to set yourself targets what do you consider success to look like, how are you going to measure these etc. My recommendation would be to think small but ensure you’re clear on the measurement, for example in twitter terms is it the number of followers or the number of mentions or in Facebook terms is it the amount of customer interaction or the number of likes? At this point you’re trying to determine what success looks like relative to the investment.
3. Engagement Plan – Consider what the content needs to be for the campaign, consider the tone of engagement (are you looking for a young audience or mature)? Consider how to get the best out of the social network your using look into what the best practices for that Network are there’s lots of information about.
4. Measure success – don’t forget to measure success – you’ve set the targets but if they are to get customers to call make sure you note the source of your customers introduce the question on enquiry forms or during telephone calls.
5. Consider Training – if you want more experience consider looking at our Training Programs they may be able to help
6. Ask the experts – it costs nothing to ask so just call us