Archive June 2010

Social media: is it right for my business?

June 14, 2010 in All posts

I’ve recently been mired in a lot of work and thoughts around Social, and how – and more importantly where – it should be applied for a business. Here’re my thoughts, compiled into one article. I draw on a number of articles from the likes of eConsultancy and others to compile the content. Hope you like it: any feedback welcome.

Social Media is now the #1 activity online (supplanting ‘adult movies’) according to speakers at the 2010 Internet World Expo. Whilst this is no doubt true, it’s not advisable to simply jump in without a loose strategy or planning to support it. Any interactions need to be relevant, engaging and timely – or users will get annoyed, and the result will end up overwhelmingly negative.

Relevant:

Shouting about a product that isn’t relevant to someone will result in failure. Ensure thought & research goes into approaching/following the right people – at the right time.

Engaging:

Twitter in particular allows for near-real time engagement with users Tweeting about certain issues. Making helpful comments or suggestions when the user needs them is a great way to start building a fanbase of relevant/interested people – helping the relevancy above.

Timely:

As above – making sure that interjections and comments are made at the right time.

Brand relevancy.

Thought needs to go into whether SM is the right promotion method for a brand, taking into account:

1. The type of product(s) sold/offered
   Some products or services are not naturally geared up to be sold/promoted/serviced by SM
2. The demographic of their typical customer (AKA audience relevancy)
   If the target market does not read blogs, use Twitter or is active on Facebook – those are not the avenues to choose
3. What’s the aim for using this channel?
   Is it to be a customer service channel? A device for pushing sales of products? Something to drive customer engagement? This needs to be defined early – and in conjunction with 1 & 2
4. Resource
   Is there the resource/staff to manage social interactions online? Engaging in the social space is typically time-consuming and potentially difficult to measure ROI

Just because a tool is available doesn’t mean it is right for the situation. Hammering nails in with a saw instead of a hammer is inefficient, and will most likely result in failure: the same is true of promotion via social media. It’s worth noting that achieving cut-through in SM can be tricky.

Interested? Read on! (beware: it’s long…)

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