This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!
As we have stated in the introduction to our JitterJam Advisor program information, it’s important to lay the proper foundation and determine the goals and strategies of your social marketing efforts in order to achieve measurable success. A strong strategy and implementation plan will have you achieve your business goals, increase your visibility and grow your business. But 59% of businesses engaged in social media/social marketing admit to not having a strategy! So how do they know if what they are doing is working?
During our last Creativity Coffee, we discussed why it’s important to have a social marketing strategy and what needs to be included in that strategy. It was a lively and varied discussion. Here are a few key take-aways.
- Ready-Fire-Aim is not a social marketing strategy.
- Many companies are trying things to see what “sticks” but don’t have a method to their madness nor a way to measure the success of their experimentation.
- While experimentation is fine, there needs to be goals behind the brand’s social marketing efforts; experimenting with tactics to achieve those goals can be part of that strategy.
- “Brand impressions” may be a goal, but even brand impressions need to lead to something tangible.
- It’s the Wild Wild West out there. Beware of snake oil salesmen.
- Picking the right consultant or agency to help develop and implement your strategy is vitally important.
- Look for good/bad signs that the consultant or agency you’re looking to hire has the expertise they claim to have. Are they using social marketing tactics for their own lead generation? How are they executing social marketing for other clients? Do the even have a Twitter account? How effective is it?
- Just because an agency has social marketing services, it doesn’t mean that they have expertise. Ask questions regarding other strategies and campaigns they have executed. How did they measure success? What were the goals? Did they reach them?
- What are the components of a social marketing strategy?
- Goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve through social marketing? How do they relate to your business’ overall goals? While ‘brand awareness’ is always a goal (measured by brand mentions through social channels), what specifically can social marketing deliver? Website visitors? Revenue/purchases? Repeat business? Higher customer satisfaction? Product feedback and ideas?
- Strategy to achieve those objectives. What is the driving idea behind achieving your goals? Like the goals, the strategy should complement and supplement the overall company strategies. Using a football metaphor, the social marketing strategy is like the offensive strategy. It needs to fit with the game strategy, the defensive strategy, etc. How does the social marketing strategy fit with the overall marketing strategy (the game strategy)?
- Tactics. What are the specific actions you are going to take to implement that strategy? These are the “post content to Twitter and Facebook” types of items. In the football metaphor, these are the specific plays and players that you use to achieve a win.
- Success criteria, measurement and review. If your goal isn’t explicitly a measurable figure, how are you going to measure the success of your efforts? How are you going to review and measure your progress, adjust the strategy and tactics as needed, and move forward?
So, has your business created and implemented a social marketing strategy? Why or why not? How has social marketing improved your business/brand? We’d love to hear from you!
Need some help developing your Social Marketing strategy? JitterJam is now offering Advisory Services to help you get more out of your efforts.
