How to approach social media marketing

When having a conversation, it is usually helpful to check to make sure everyone is on the same page. To that end, when I talk about social media marketing I am referring to the process of applying traditional marketing principles/disciplines to rapidly evolving communications that allows for real-time, 1:1 conversations with your target audiences. Above all, it’s about creating a dialog with your current and future customers by providing content & functionality that users find relevant and engaging.

In speaking with clients as they begin or evolve their social media marketing efforts, perhaps the most important realization is that social media marketing requires a long-term view and commitment to be successful. You are establishing a dialog with your customers and once you begin, your audience will expect you to hold up your end of the conversation. Just like in any conversation, you may not always like what the other person has to say, but smart marketers value and learn from that input.

While there are many ways to approach social media marketing, here is what I suggest:

1. Listen
   Before engaging your audience, the first thing you need to do is listen to the conversations that are going on about your brand, your product(s), the broader business marketplace or between the people that make up your target audience.
2. Understand
   As in any marketing plan development, it is necessary to determine your objectives, targets, strategies and success metrics before launching into program development and execution. While it is fine to test, learn and evolve, try to avoid “random acts of social media” whenever possible.
3. Prepare
   Content is king in social media. It is important to map and maximize your content in order to increase your Share of ConversationSM . Please remember, content in social means a variety of things: a blog post, a webinar, a whitepaper, a contest, an offer, a poll, etc.—whatever fits your objectives. The key is to understand what you need to hold up your end of the conversation.
4. Engage
   After you have listened to the conversations about your brand/products, clarified your objectives, developed a strategy and prepared your content map and initial content, the fun begins. There are various ways to engage with your audiences depending upon your objectives, but the key to creating any dialog is to remain truthful and real. This is what generates trust.
5. Measure
   Measurement ties the outcomes of your efforts back to the objectives established during the planning stage. Whether it be engagement trends like Share of ConversationSM or changes in brand sentiment, to tracking impressions, links, leads, registrations, event attendance, influence rankings, etc., you need to establish clear success metrics from the beginning to maximize and showcase ROI.
6. Integrate
   Finally, social media marketing does not operate in a silo. The knowledge and insights gained via your social media marketing efforts should be deeply integrated into your overall marketing communications and your traditional marketing efforts should promote your social media programs and touch points. Remember back to your Marketing 101 classes? It ALL works together!

While this is how I recommend approaching social media marketing, what are your thoughts? Does this approach resonate with your experiences to date?

Deidra Bodkin is VP, Client Services with IDG Strategic Marketing Services. She leads the team responsible for developing and executing social media marketing programs for IDG’s technology clients. Follow her on Twitter at @deidrabodkin.

6 Comments

1. Angela Bull | Feb 15, 2010 11:57 am

   I would add that engagement needs to be personal and authentic. If your blog just contains the same stuff you would have previously put on the corporate Website, then don’t bother.

2. Marketing Strategy | Feb 15, 2010 6:08 pm

   Social media marketing is pretty much like any other form of marketing. Marketing Strategy

3. Deidra Bodkin | Feb 16, 2010 9:58 am

   Angela-Thanks for your comment and I completely agree. In my opinion, the content and tone of any communication must ring true for for people to respond. I would go so far as to say it should also be humble, in the sense of creating an actual dialog vs using social media as just another broadcast channel.

   Deidra

4. Deidra Bodkin | Feb 16, 2010 10:01 am

   Marketing Strategy-

   I agree that the core marketing principles still apply (I referred to this as “marketing 101″, but I do think that the dialog and real time components of social media marketing are causing marketers to change how they have communicated with their audience/customers previously.

   Deidra

5. Sreekanth | Feb 16, 2010 10:27 am

   This approach is a generic one and is fundamentally correct. Random acts of social media i think are a result of most not knowing how this approach is to be actually executed. The details of how the dynamics work in a facebook vs twitter vs digg – i think is complicated. I may be one of few people who landed here thinking that there may be some insights on what one should be doing on facebook vs twitter. Which of these work for who? B2c = facebook ? B2b = twitter ? What should a marketeers approach be?

6. Deidra Bodkin | Feb 16, 2010 11:57 am

   Hi Sreekanth-I’m sorry that this initial post did not meet your needs, but I will add this topic for a future blog. Stay tuned.

   Deidra