Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Is the social media world a dark and dangerous unknown world? The answer is yes and here is why; for most marketers (especially traditional marketers) social media tactics are relatively new. Aside from being on Linkedin and hearing about Twitter on the Today Show, most marketers simply don’t have the experience or training to understand why, where, when and how to use social media strategically.

Does social media need to be a scary unknown world? No and here is why:

• Social media is not unlike traditional media in many respects. You need to have an objective, or reason for engaging in social media. Simply saying, “we need to be in social media,” is not an objective and it certainly is not a strategy.
• You need to have a target audience or demographic that you hope to engage with, to either gain brand awareness through impressions, increase sales through conversions, or to better understand other aspects of your business, consumers or competition.
• Finally, you need a strategy to accomplish these goals or objectives. During this phase, keep in mind that unlike traditional media, social media is a two way street, so be prepared for unexpected or negative comments.  Guess what? Negative comments are okay. Yes, it’s okay because for the first time in your company’s history you can finally respond directly to the customer and attempt to rectify the issue.

Also, remember social media best practices. Though not all social media companies are alike in their approach or strategic thought process, in my experience most have a pretty good understanding of social media best practices.

Whether large or small, below is a phased approach to help with the adoption and success rate of your social media efforts. Keep in mind this is not a good fit for all, and other factors such as multiple brands or stakeholders might be involved.

Phase 1: Listen
Listening is the foundation to any social media strategy. Understanding who, what, where, when and how often these conversations are occurring is paramount.

Objectives of this phase:
1.Define the audience and topics to monitor

2.Capture and quantify conversations

3.Identify trends, dashboard report and analyze

4.Listen to dialog about competitors

Phase 2: Strategy
The focus of this phase is to take the lessons and insight gained during Phase 1 and develop an integrated social media strategy.

Objectives of this phase:
1.Develop integrated, objective-based social media strategy

2.Define tactics to deploy: i.e. Twitter plan, Facebook plan, etc…

3.Determine campaign Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

Phase 3 Engage
With Listening and Strategy phases complete and objectives set, now you can deploy strategic tactics and engage with consumers to meet those objectives.

Objectives of this phase:
1.Strategy deployment

2.Engage conversations, promotions and incentives

3.Test, measure and modify strategy as appropriate