by tradesmeninsights | Aug 2, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Social media isn’t just about posting comments on Facebook or Twitter. It’s about not only having a plan of how to execute your message, but how to get the most out of it. Since social media is different from our normal marketing activities, your team needs to be trained with guidelines on the do’s and don’t’s .
The Construction Marketing Association recently posted 5 Social Media Training Tips that would really apply to any industry.
Here are some highlights:
- Create a social media policy – Ensure both brand and corporate objectives are met. Need to define ramifications of negative situations, unprofessional conduct and disciplinary actions.
- Recruit social media editors – Social media opens up who should contribute to the message outside the typical PR and Marketing disciplines. Recruit and leverage thought leaders within your company and take advantage of their expertise.
- Develop a plan – This is not ready, fire, aim. You need to define overall objectives and goals for each social media segment you are planning on participating in.
- Conduct social media training – After you’ve recruited your team, you need to give them some basic training in each social platform. Each are different and they need to understand the best way to use the system.
- Keep everyone in the loop – You need to keep everyone from the team doing the work, to management where you want to build support, updated on the “wins.” Sharing the successes creates enthusiasm.
It’s important not to just jump in but have a plan. What are some things you’re doing to help educate your team?
If you ike this post, you may like:
Have You Got a Social Media Policy?
You Should Know the “Why” Before the “How” if You’re Going to Jump Into Social Media
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 19, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
I thought I’d share with you 5 of my favorite posts from the last quarter. It’s obvious to me that they coincide with what you, the readers, are saying.
Have You Got a Social Media Policy?
7 Tips to Use Twitter to Generate Traffic and Leads
What’s Your Company Value Proposition?
Manufacturers: 5 Tips to Make the Most out of an Open House or Counter Days
6 Tips When Talking to the Media
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 29, 2010 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Since anyone can be a spokesperson on social media, your company should have established guidelines that outline rules for online engagement.
If you’re in a larger company, that means getting everyone from the executive suite to HR, and of course, customer service and marketing. If you’re a smaller one, you still need guidelines, but maybe not to the extreme of larger companies.
The first question is where to begin. You can look at what other big companies have done like IBM or Intel and cut and paste from publicly shared sites. Or you can look to associations like the PRSA or HR sites to give you guidelines.
Another option is developing your own set of guidelines. In reality, you’ll probably do both. The key when developing guidelines is to borrow from the best and adapt them to your company.
You need to find a balance because you are writing guidelines for a media of which you have no control over. This isn’t like writing a HR policy where you can dictate terms/conditions. Social is an open sharing of information and is one’s opinions on a subject which falls under the freedom of speech and privacy issues. Yes you as a company have the right to protect trade secrets and other proprietary info.
Here are some things you need to consider:
- Define who will be the “official spokesperson” for your company and outline the topics they can speak about.
- Define a process for crisis issues like a Twitter storm on a specific product.
- Identify internally who will be responsible for granting permission on industry trends, new products, etc.
- How can your employees engage in conversations without speaking for the company?
Here are some links that might be helpful:
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 7, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I recently put on a Webinar on how social media could be used by B-to-B, and one of the most common questions is what tools should I use? Should I concentrate on Facebook, LinkedIn or is Twitter the best for me? When I ask them why are they doing social media, I get a silent pause. One of the first things we talk about is the “Why” you want to participate in the social media scene. If you can’t answer the Why, then the How doesn’t matter. Don’t get into social because you think it’s cool or that this will be the “silver bullet” that will save your business. You need to treat social like any other marketing program. Define expectations and outcomes. Adopt a phased approach to meet these business objectives. Here are some questions to answer to better understand your goals:
- Why are you participating?
- How can social media improve your customer relations?
- Can social media help you build/reinforce your brand?
- Do your current customers use social and which sites do they frequent?
- How do you define success?
- What kind of metrics are you going to set in place to monitor your success?
- How can social media help you gain more knowledge?
- What kind of social media policy do you have in place?
Like any other program, success is based on developing a plan and then implementing it. If you want to be cool and hip, do your homework and you’ll find out that people respond when you have a plan.
What are your thoughts?
