7 things to think about before jumping in

In the last post, we discussed how social media is gaining traction and becoming a tool in every marketer’s armor. Here are a few things you should consider before jumping in

1. NEED: Social Media must be integrated with your overall marketing strategy. Think about a) Why do you think you need to implement social media? b) How do you see social media helping you to achieve your marketing or business objectives?
2. BUY IN: Social Media is not a campaign, it is a long term strategy. The only way to succeed is to engage in the conversation in an ongoing manner. With that, it is critical to have the buy in from the CMO and CFO to keep up with the investments in resources, time and money till you start seeing positive ROI.
3. BANDWIDTH & RESOURCES: The strength of Social Media is in the LIE model, i.e. the ability to listen, influence and engage. Do you have the time and people to LIE?
4. CULTURE: What is your corporate culture? Is your company bold enough to support social engagements and willing to talk transparently, authentically & honestly to people online?
5. COST: The good news is that there are tools available for the LISTEN part of LIE. Marketers can make use of tools like TweetDeck, Radian6, Techrigy, Visible Technologies, BuzzGain, and Crimson Hexagon to name a few to listen to the conversations about their brand, employees, competition and industry. But you need to consider the ROI on the cost of these tools and your resources.
6. TOOLS: Once you have established the above 5 factors, you need to see what Social Media tools to use to align with your goals and objectives.
7. METRICS: If you cannot measure something, you cannot improve it. Given the increasing importance of Social Media, it is important that marketers agree on a set of metrics aligned with their goals and objectives. Amber Naslund of Radian6 offers some great ideas on the type of metrics we can use for Social Media:

• Exuberance: the monthly count of positive posts, comments and testimonials
• Bucket Volume: comparison of monthly count of complaints and referrals
• Activation: the monthly total of new sources that have shared your positive content
• Conversation: the total monthly share of conversations vs. competition
• Engagement: the amount of repeat commenting and lengths of those comments
• Repetition: average number of times a particular source/user retweeets or comments on your content
• Bonding: the percentage of your followers who comment or retweet your content

What factors are you thinking of when implementing a social media strategy? Please chime in

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