Overview:

This article will provide an overview of how SMM can become an effective and an integral part of a business' overall marketing strategy and is meant for people who have none-to-little social media marketing experience and are exploring the use of social media for their businesses. We will also discuss various attributes of businesses that impact the social media strategies that might work for them.

‘Join Us on Facebook' seems to be a phrase, which is present in every organization's marketing dictionary at this time. Having said that, most organizations are still struggling with: what it means, how can it be used to connect with people, what does it mean to connect with people, how can their marketing effort leverage this connectivity, and how can its ROI (return on investment) be measured?

This article will attempt to resolve the first 2 questions and briefly discuss the topic of ROI on social media marketing.

What are social media networks, and why are they important for me?

According to the latest surveys, most folks who browse the internet spend a significant part of their leisure time using social media networks. This coupled with the amount of time people spend on the internet for their professions makes them the most prominent medium to capture people's attention and spread a message. Social media platforms can broadly be categorized as following:

Personality Based Social Media Platforms: We live in a world where we can only learn about our friends using what they have on their Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn updates. Phone calls are only for emergency communication. Emails have become very cumbersome, since they only help us communicate with a selected set of people. Social media is fast becoming the most preferred means of communication. These platforms are no-longer means of finding distant people and unknown friends, but actually serve as alternative means of communicating with our existing friends, people who we could never keep up with (school friends, people we met at a party, college friends, colleagues from previous lives, etc). LinkedIn, Facebook and Orkut fall under this category. Who is getting married; who is dating; who had a break-up and who left or joined a new job – to know the answer for such questions social media is fast becoming the primary communication mechanism.

Information or Content Based Social Media Networks: Social media networks are fast becoming the preferred medium for search. People look for credible information on SlideShare, YouTube, Scribd, etc. People look for entertainment and news on these networks. I personally use the videos on YouTube for entertainment as well as to find subject matter expert information on any subject.

Blogs and Discussion Forums: These are fast becoming the most credible and efficient way to keep updated with the latest in any subject. Length of the updates is getting smaller, and the frequency faster, that is why networks like Twitter are gaining in popularity. Most of my social media marketing knowledge gets acquired by keeping up with the best blogs and discussion forums.

Reviews & Feedback based Social Media Networks: Before engaging with any business and/or person, people look at what the external world had to say about them. Testimonials on your website are no-longer trustworthy, testimonials on neutral platforms is what people look for. This is where platforms like MouthShut are gaining in popularity. Discussion forums and blogs are a fantastic means of getting reviews as well.

Interest Based Social Media Marketing Platforms: Social media platforms are a great means for getting together people who have some common interests. As a means of sharing information or connecting with subject matter experts, these platforms have found widespread usage. Groups feature on various platforms as well as discussion forums fall under this category.

A clear understanding of different platforms is essential to align your business objectives with the right SMM approach. The use of a specific platform depends on your objectives as well as the targeted audience. We will explore the attributes that can help you choose the right social media strategy in the next section.

How do I choose the best Social Media Strategy for my Business? Do I use every Social Media Network, or is there a recipe for success?

The social media strategy for your business should be a function of the business objectives as well as the targeted audience. If your audience is more business professionals, choose LinkedIn as the platform. If the audience is teenage audience, choose Orkut as the platform. Let us first define some attributes of various businesses and then explore what they mean:

What are you looking to promote or market?
What do you have that will generate interest of people in Social Media (Product, Concept around a Product, a Service or a Brand)
What are the primary objectives of your social media marketing campaign?
What and how do you want the social media users to engage with what you have for them? (View your offering, providing positive feedback...etc)
What is the rate and pace of content creation in your company?
Do you have sufficient content or relevant concept that social media users will value on an ongoing basis?

What are you looking to promote or market?

# Is your product or offering catering to a broad audience or are you targeting a specific customer segment?
# Do you have a new concept or offering you are looking to explore? Are you looking to create a new marketplace?
# Is there some unique community aspect to your product or service; something beyond your business? This is extremely important since most people don't want to interact with a business unless they have an instant requirement.

What are the primary objectives of your social media marketing campaign?

Most businesses say ‘yes' to all the objectives mentioned below, and they are all valid for most businesses. However, a deeper evaluation is required to set up the short term and long term objectives into distinct buckets of primary and secondary goals.

# Awareness and visibility of your product, services or company
# Brand promotion
# Interactivity/Engagement with the target group
# Community creation around your products and services
# Lead and sales generation
# Customer relationship management
# Reputation management
# Recruitment
# Survey

What is the rate and pace of content creation in your company?

In social media marketing, content is the king. From short Twitter messages to world-class videos, your content needs to replicate your value proposition and offering. My experience in SMM says this is the single biggest stumbling block for most companies.

Never bite more than you can chew. Be very careful in selecting what social media campaigns you want to run based on what you are willing to commit from a content perspective. Key questions to address are:

# Does the senior management team want to commit their time in helping refine social media marketing content? Authentic participation from the senior management team best helps in building trust and credibility with the customer.

# Do you have a dedicated team for writing content? What you can attain in social media is a function of the quality content you can generate.

# Do you have access to resource that can create good graphics? An image speaks more than a 1000 words; this has never been truer than in the social media world. Attention spans are very limited for you to ensure people notice your messages.

# Do you have access to resources that can create good audio-visuals?

# Do you have people who love researching the internet for finding information and resources on your industry?

So, how do I define my Social Media Marketing Plan?

Step 1: For defining your social media marketing plan is to hire experts. For social media to be successful, the implementation team needs to fully understand your business and have online communications expertise. Implementation will only be successful if the implementation is done with a vendor who works in a partnership mode. A 100 per cent transparency is required between the customer and the vendor. Do not hire a vendor for your implementation. Your campaigns can only be successful if you hire a partner.

Step 2: Work with the partner in answering the three attributes mentioned above and select what are the right mediums for you to utilize in social media and how would you leverage each one you select. The question is not only defining the right medium, but also the right message to propagate on the medium and defining the right results to expect.

Step 3: Defining the overall results from SMM in the short and the long term. Remember that SMM will not provide you with short term ROI. It's a game for long term value creation. This is one of the primary reasons why selecting the right partner is that much more important. Focus on quality of implementation rather than quantity. Do not look at number of blog posts, or videos, or number of networks where you have a profile as a measure.

How do I continually monitor and ensure I am on the right track?

One of the best characteristics of SMM is a continuous feedback mechanism and the opportunity to make changes on an ongoing basis. SMM has changed the ‘Do it Right' methodology to ‘Do it quick, may not be all right, and then go back and change'. Speed of execution will define success.

What to monitor and measure should be captured when you define your objectives. There is tremendous amount of research and experimentation going on at this time to determine how best to measure social media returns, but there is no single tool at this time that can provide a holistic view of the results you attain. Business owners as well as social media strategy and implementation team need to work very closely to define the measures of success.

Every business objective as defined in the section above will lead to a set of metrics which will help you measure your SMM progress. Also, every social media platform will have its own measures of success. Number of posts, number of views, number of unique visitors, number of relevant visitors, tonality of messages, attitude of people posting messages, leads generated, relevant leads generated and net sales are all appropriate measures of success depending on the maturity of your social media marketing implementation. These metrics needs to be defined by both the business owner as well as person responsible for social media marketing strategy. Please remember that success in social media can only be measured in long term.

Please remember that SMM is about leveraging the collective power of people. And the collective power of people has more knowledge and information than any individual or organization. Be as ‘authentic' as possible while executing your social media campaigns. People trust you more if you have the courage of making mistakes and acknowledging them.