Three imperatives for social media marketers

Progressive organizations are grappling with what could be the most effective strategy on social media. While consultants and practitioners draw up framework and present compelling case studies to persuade organizations into increasing their spend on this fast evolving and critical customer touch point, the perceived lack of appropriate metrics and limited understanding of potential outcomes appears to be constraints for in-house marketers and communicators. After a session on social media with John Bell, the following factors came to my mind as essentials for any organization’s success in social media. 

 

Be convivial: It is common to see organizations making themselves present in a plethora of social platforms without actively engaging themselves in any initiatives. Most often, the decision to be present is a result of the marketer’s reticent attitude; after all she should tick against that present in her to-do list. In a customer-centric platform, one cannot play a docile role, especially after marking your entry. Such a restrained approach also implies lack of appropriate investments in resources to ‘man’ the platform. In effect, the organization forcefully adopts a ‘mute’ strategy. No better case than what consulting giant McKinsey went through in 2011 when it struggled to appease media and others who questioned one of its reports.  When you plan to adopt social – be social. 

Transparent processes – Marketing and communication experts often ensure that the social media and brand guidelines are so exhaustive and stringent that proactive and enthusiastic bloggers within the company doze off after two pages or else are petrified of contributing. Organizations can instead create broad points which will ensure that social media ambassadors adopt a self-regulating approach when they venture into social media. The processes of marketing and communication in today’s ‘social’ era cannot be restraining. An increasing number of organizations are working towards personalization (knowing customers as individuals), creating a system of engagement; maximizing value creation at each touch point and finally, ensuring a standard culture (including brand promises). Well, it is safe to assume that such a move would start internally; understanding their own employees who are also potential customers.

An organization with such advanced systems in place can certainly create a transparent process wherein every employee can actively engage in social media and contribute substantially. 

Feedforward – Change in behaviour could potentially transform one’s life, let alone social media initiatives. A friend of mine, while trying to improve his firms social media initiatives, informed his content creator,’ let us build more such compelling Q&A’s as you did in the last month – they seemed to be engaging. By the way, we need to focus a bit more on improving the quality. Let me know what we can do.’ He had told me that the content creator was focused on increasing the number of articles and hence overlooked ‘attention to detail.’

Feedback focuses on the past and can be limited and static while Feedforward can make any initiative more fun and enjoyable.