It does not really matter if you are a large company or a small start-up, it is essential to plan for implementation of social media marketing. It can assist in navigating the murky waters of social media- the hidden “rocks” and lurking “crocodiles” hungry for “hapless” posts.
So, some “check lists” or best practices for successfully implementing social media within your company may be very useful.
o Create an Outline
- Figure out the needs of your audience. Some trail and error may be required for this. But, make an effort and get some clues.
- Next, design a straw man for your social media goals. What do you want to accomplish? If you have multiple goals, write them down and prioritize them.
- Have a time frame in mind. Try and be realistic or even conservative, as you are just plunging into the waters.
o Establish Social Media Guidelines and Compliance
- Write and distribute guidelines on your company’s Social media policy.
- Get employee sign-off, whenever possible. Make sure they have understood the policy by asking them to complete a questionnaire on main policy guidelines.
o Recruit Social Advocates/Evangelists
- Decide on the type/combination of employees or customers to woo- for example: By social influence, by department, by title, influential customer etc.
- Decide on how many. Start with a handful of key evangelists and then expand to others. Several social media platforms, including NewzSocial, make it very easy to onboard advocates. It’s a matter of getting them to login and turn their social profile permissions ON.
o Train the Social Media Community
Core Training:
- Phase 1: Basic Training- How to Get Started on the Social Media platform:
- Phase 2: Standard Training: Scale and add more campaigns
- Phase 3: Advanced Training: Optimize campaigns.
- Ongoing: Create a social media community board where ideas can be posted/exchanged by members.
Crisis Training:
- Create a special team for crisis management with a team leader.
- Create an alert system if there are visible spikes in brand mentions in social media listening.
- Rate the crisis on a scale such as 1-5: 1 being Mild and 5 being High Alert.
- Do “crisis drills” so that you are ready when the actual crisis hits.
o Implement in Phases
- Phase 1: Recruit a small team of employees to test the social media waters. For example, start with 2-5 employees.
- Phase 2: Add another handful of employees
- Phase 3: Scale to all participating employees
o Reward Advocates/Evangelists
- Recognize best performers in the social media community via badges, certificates, games, posting on boards etc.
o Establish Posting “Best Practices”
- Establish “Best Practices” for posting- Ask the Which, When, How, What, and Who for social media postings and WRITE them down.
- Revise the guidelines as needed as you gather information from your campaign metrics (see Metrics below).
o Observe Metrics
- Most social media platforms feature campaign metrics. Understand and use the metrics to observe which campaigns are performing well.
- Use this intelligence to design and improve your next campaign.
o Gather Competitive Intelligence
- Observe and learn from your competition- how are they using social media in their marketing campaigns. Learn from their successes and failures.
In conclusion, the checklists are guidelines for you to start taking steps to introduce “Best Practices” along with the implementation of social media at your company.
Ask: What are some of your implementation ideas?
In my next few blogs, I will expand on several of the checklists.
