Social Media Strategy in South Dakota

By Jillian Anderson | December 24, 2008

Many businesses are catching on, choosing to engage interactive social media sites and applications as marketing and PR tools. You are able to reap the benefits of networking for customer service value, staying up to date with industry conversation and public interest trends, and building RELATIONSHIPS with the PEOPLE gathered around these online watering holes. The key is to remain both Person and Business at the same time…but mostly person.

As well said by one of my favorite social media pundits (Lee Odden):

By understanding the social web as it relates to fundamental marketing principles, tactics, tools and best practices, you can create a framework for the development of a working strategy.

Though many fundamental marketing principles apply to both traditional and social media marketing alike, social media is NOT traditional marketing, but is a completely different and involved (interactive) process. Interactive strategies need to be approached with relationships in mind and not as a marketing or PR “quick-fix”.

In order to implement it effectively, the first step of any marketing strategy should be to define objectives. Once you have a clear purpose, a social media strategy then be developed and generally play through the following actions.

Discover Conversations.
Find the online conversations surrounding or mentioning your brand – these conversations can range from a blog post or a comment on a forum, to a microblog mini-post (e.g. Twitter), a video or photo sharing site (e.g. YouTube and Flickr), or a social networking site like MySpace.

Listen.
Learn what the community is saying. By listening to the conversations happening on the social web around both your brand and the competition, you can begin to understand what needs to be done.

Establish.
Build a starting place to hold conversations and possibly utilize a blogging platform either on your site or through another service like WordPress.com. Generate content and encourage social participation. Prepare then get involved.

Engage.
Reach out to the people involved in your newly established online communities and networks. Engage and influence the attitude of online conversations around your brand – join in. Remember to encourage relationships. Be amusing, transparent, informative and personable. Let people see the person behind your social brand interactions.

Manage.
If you find people – especially influential people – are leaving negative comments, it is important to embrace them. Combat the negative sentiment by leaving a comment that asks how you can improve or a comment acknowledging their dissatisfaction and offer consolation, or even one to defend your brand and let the readers decide for themselves.

Archive.
Lastly, but certainly not least, manage everything and keep an archive of trends, successes, and attitudes. You just might find that all this work could come in handy when developing your next business strategy!

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