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Thinking About Social Media? 10 Things to Keep Top of Mind

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As the US summer sets in, we thought it high time to take a time out and do a social media reality check. We execute social media campaigns for a variety of organizations, from events to government and nonprofits to associations. With every campaign, there’s always a mental checklist we keep as we create and implement strategies to ensure our efforts are goal-focused, measurable and successful.

If you’re thinking about implementing social media into your organization’s marketing plan, here are 10 things to keep in mind as you’re developing your strategy.

  1. Social is not just another piece of the marketing pie– Well-intentioned broadcast marketers will have you believe that social networking platforms simply offer an additional channel to distribute your message. Not true! Companies and organizations that use networks to broadcast press releases and (only) talk about themselves will continue to be roadkill.
  2. Everyone’s an expert, no one’s an expert– Social media experts, of the just add water and stir variety, continue to come out of the woodwork. Many can talk the talk but not walk the walk! Knowing how to tweet doesn’t make you an authority. Years of productivity, a solid reputation and quantifiable results does. Peter Shankman summed it up well in a recent post: I Will Never Hire a “Social Media Expert,” and Neither Should You.
  3. Some things never change– Yes, there’s been a paradigm shift away from broadcast communications and towards engagement but the basic rules of communication, PR and marketing practice still apply. Good old fashioned business ethics continue to rule the day! Knowing who you want to impact, the value your organization brings and understanding the other person’s needs before you get in touch continues to be mission critical in all marketing efforts.
  4. Social media is more than Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter– While uber-important, social networks make up only part of the social media ecosystem. Email lists, web forums, user groups, photo and video sharing services, podcasts, social bookmarking sites and niche online communities are all part of the social media mix. It’s important to seek out where your customers are socializing and get involved in conversations on their turf. Here’s a more complete definition.
  5. It’s all about building relationships– All marketing is about building relationships. Social offers tools and platforms to get the job done, but they don’t replace the one-on-one interaction necessary for being successful. And, relationships take time. We live by the adage that it’s never about the technology, but always about the people.
  6. Don’t drink the social media Kool-Aid– There are many things that social media can do, but it will not cure cancer, right the economy or solve the Middle East crisis. We tell clients that there is rarely a silver bullet. However, with hard work and marketing smarts, social media can certainly help you reach your campaign goals.
  7. It’s not one thing you do, it’s everything you do– Our most successful campaigns are those where all program elements work together. Social media, search, email and traditional should all work in tandem. Social should not be standalone, rather it should be baked into all campaign elements.
  8. Build it and they may not come– Some organizations are moving away from a destination website mentality and more towards an outpost-focused, community building strategy. While it’s great to set up your brand’s social media outposts on Facebook or LinkedIn, it’s also important to remember that customers and supporters might be involved in other social media and affinity groups as well.
  9. Social is not only about return on relationship– At Tuvel, we gauge our success by qualitative and quantitative metrics. While awareness, brand recognition and reputation are important, so are metrics that include money raised, increase in attendees or subscribers and widgets sold. Plan to measure your social media efforts in such a way that you can easily track results.
  10. At the end of the day, social media is all about being social!– If you’re a practitioner, it’s also a good thing to be sociable – sharing, listening, learning and laughing! No one wants to socialize with someone who is either a) broadcasting, or b) not socializing at all. Find your social media voice and make it a part of your brand.

What We’re Reading: July 7th – Social Media Campaign Do’s and Don’ts Edition

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This week’s edition of “What We’re Reading” focuses on some shining examples of what to do (and not do) when it comes to your social media campaigning – whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, or even blogging.

What To Do

 

What Not To Do

Have a great weekend!

10 Tips for Successful Social Media Contests & Promotions

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Contests and promotions through social media outposts like Twitter and Facebook are a great way to generate excitement and engage and involve your fans, friends and followers. It’s a key way to get people interacting with your brand, product, event or organization in a meaningful way while helping you to identify your most enthusiastic advocates.

Through our work with a variety of clients at Tuvel Communications, we’ve created and executed several successful social media contests & promotions. You can see some examples of our work, here, here and here.

Along the way, we’ve been able to refine our efforts to maximize results while creating excitement and having fun! By sharing some of our tips, we hope that we can save you time while driving the results that you want. With this in mind, we’ve created our Top 10 list of ways to ensure that your social media contests & promotions are successful:

Get peeps engaged! Don’t just broadcast promotions through social networking outlets. Rather, get folks involved with your brand or organization. We recently ran a Twitter promotion that asked folks to tell us, in 140 characters or less, why they should get a free conference pass. We also ran a promotion that required those interested to provide the contest answer as a comment on the client blog. Create something that allows people to interact directly with your brand – it’s key to getting traction and conversation going in your social media communities.

Have a there-there. Don’t just do a contest for the sake of doing a contest! All of our promotions have a specific purpose. While you want to create buzz and excitement, you also also want to think about the other goals you want to accomplish. Do you want to increase attendance, fund-raise, generate discussion, build an email list or deliver another metric?

Make it simple to participate. Complex games are fun (anyone remember the early days of scavenger hunts that included several websites?) but may attract less participants. It’s great to utilize the “flavor of the month” technologies out there, but keep your audience in mind and don’t make them do anything that will generate more perplexed questions than actual participation.

Create fun and excitement! People love contests and the chance to win prizes. Make ’em interesting and people will play. Convey excitement through messaging. Make your promotion different and, of course, inject personality into it.

Follow best practices. We are careful not to get our clients or bloggers and others into trouble by promoting or creating a contest. Know the rules beforehand. In this game, you can’t beg forgiveness! You can find out more about the rules and regulations here and here.

Offer value and relevance. Find out what turns people on. We have executed many government related promotions. We’ve been told that government types aren’t interested in promotions. Not true! Most people are interested in a contest or giveaway, it’s just a matter of finding out what they like.

Leverage marketing partners. We typically approach client partners that have large followings (fans, friends, followers, subscribers). We then approach these folks so that they might create a special (client) promotion for their readers. Everyone wins in this scenario with partners being able to offer value and our client reaping the rewards!

It’s the total campaign that matters. Promotions are most successful when they are part of a larger, integrated campaign. Involve creative and promote on the website and through email. Our most successful campaigns are seamless and can be played through several social networking platforms.

Make it easy to pick a winner and fulfill. We typically create giveaways so that our clients can randomly choose winners. We also find prizes that can be fulfilled through an email address – gift cards are a good example – make awarding easy. Have you ever had to hunt down snail mail addresses for fulfillment? Logistically, it can be a painful process!

Don’t stop! Promotions help to create traction and momentum. Continue the conversation, get others involved and grow your supporters. In other words: be a smart marketer!