Before businesses make the leap into the social web, it would benefit their reputation to take a step back and consider the consequences of a poorly organized engagement strategy using social media. Simply put – social media engagement is how your business manages and interacts with conversations regarding the brand throughout the social web – be it on a company blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc . . .
The first step, and arguably most important, is to listen and monitor the conversations on the social web. Creating and implementing a custom social media dashboard is becoming best practice to help monitor brand mentions and help detect growing trends for your brand. Once you have established a system to monitor your brand, you’ll then be able to answer these questions;
What are the main channels of communication for your brand? Too often, businesses will take a blind leap into the social web by attempting to have a presence in as many social networks as they can. This is not the most effective strategy, as you could be focused on building community around your brand where it may not exist. Instead, monitor your brand’s dashboard and identify where your audience is established – be it on microblogs, such as Twitter, social networks, such as Facebook, Blogs, Forums, etc..
Who are the players in your space? By monitoring your brand and the people who talking about it, you can begin to identify who the influencers in the community are, along with who your brand evangelists are. It pays to interact with the influencers regarding your brand because they typically have established a large following within the community.
How do the conversations start? All conversations on the social web have a starting point, no matter if they are one-to-one on Twitter, or found in a forum thread with many users conversing together. Taking some time to identify how the conversation was kicked off can be huge insight for a brands market research team. Positive or negative – each conversation is a type of mini focus group.
When to engage your brand in the conversation? I feel that this is the most important question to answer before engaging your brand in any social marketing relationship. At what point do you feel that your social media profile needs to act as a customer service rep or give expert advice on a product or service? Once you have engaged your brand in the conversation, it is very difficult to find an exit strategy without sacrificing your brand’s online reputation.
Something to think about as you help your brand a create solid engagement strategy for the social web. Enjoy your Wednesday!
Really good thoughts- I agree that listening before engaging is a very important step.
Jonathan,
Great post. It’s right inline with what we discussed Friday.
Your last point is so very key. What do you want your identity to be in social media.
Jim
Missing from this is the calculation as to whether you wish to engage your brand in the conversations occurring on social media. We’ve established it’s difficult to measure the true ROI of engagement and social media. And further, there is potential for damage if done poorly.
I’ll be blunt, and say what I tell my clients: Conversation isn’t the same as engagement, and conversation in marketing may be overrated.
After all, most in the outdoor industry aren’t even handling the basics of online marketing very well.
They’re not generating much value from their customer/email lists (which might (still) be their most valuable online asset).
They’re not playing smart with emerging online media (the heck with Twitter, most in the fly fishing space seem reluctant to acknowledge the existence of the online world).
And no – they’re not identifying influencers (social media or not).
Why, exactly, the sudden need to dive into social networks? Why commit resources that should be committed to handling the basics?
One of my biggest client challenges is talking clients back from the ledge – convincing them to ignore the hype for a while, and to look at the new breed of social media as simply media channels – which they can engage with, but at a cost.
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Great read.
Your article is one of the very few I’ve read where monitoring of brand mentions over social networks -prior- to kick starting promotional schemes is underlined as a serious requirement. Businesses are simply thinking “yes! Now we can officially tout how big bucks tech-savvy we are!” Less is more, baby steps, etc. If you can’t control/don’t know how/don’t understand the reasoning behind adoption of a web 2.0 tools because of a lack of clear project goals, your every stumble is going to be amplified by the same people you’re trying to convert.
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