Evident Productions

Many marketing and communications managers consider social networking a hassle.  They believe it’s something that isn’t worth spending personnel, or budgetary resources for.  If you do any amount of research on demographics, regardless of who you’re targeting, social networking can be used in new dynamic ways that give feedback results traditional marketing forms can’t deliver.

The reason why social networking is considered a “hassle” often times is due to the time and personnel resources that it takes to MAINTAIN them.  What many aren’t doing is taking the time to understand the STRATEGY as well as REVIEW THE INFORMATION after the time and energy has been invested into social networking.  What would you think of any professional sports team that went out on a field WITHOUT A GAME PLAN, or a play by play action strategy?  Even if they just went out and ran plays, do you think they would improve if they didn’t REVIEW WHAT THEY DID?

When you think of social networking from that perspective, and understand that your team can be successful if you have a GAME PLAN you can understand why you can’t just TRY IT OUT.  You MUST understand WHAT DIRECTION you’re planning to go and by what ways you will measure SUCCESS and FAILURE as you advance with your game plan.  Here are 5 things to consider with your social networking integration GAME PLAN:

1) Social Networking is an EXTENSION not just ANOTHER GAME-

Too often what frustrates people before they even start is the way they APPROACH the social networking resources.  Think of social networking as AN EXTENSION of your current marketing plan.  If you don’t have a current marketing and growth plan, take a step back from ALL of it and come up with a COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY.  Regardless of how short term or long term you are able to develop a vision or plan, having NO PLAN will get you NO WHERE.  In the same way that career counselors are helpful and mandated by college to help students DIRECT their plan of action, the same approach can be applied to social networking and communications strategies.  Either determine with YOUR TEAM, or make that wise investment to have someone lock arms with your team and allow them to develop an efficient plan with and for you.

Your social networking presence should help support and PROMOTE your web site and online presence. It should also promote your PRINT, BROADCAST, E-MAIL BLAST, and other media promotions of your message.  If each of your marketing components don’t support each other yet you simply expect them to provide solutions on their own, how do you expect any of them to GROW STRONGER?  Remember a TEAM is ONLY AS STRONG as the WEAKEST LINK.  If you approach all of your marketing as individual segments instead of one strong set of links working together, then don’t expect any of your elements to work together let alone succeed for themselves.

2) TIME + RESOURCES INVESTED= GROWTH + MARKET EXPANSION-

When fan pages were created on Facebook, and networks were developed on LinkedIN, many would add connections and stop at that.  Many to this day don’t have more than a logo or at best contact information on their site.  What these same people fail to understand is that the investment of TIME involved with interaction of fans and people in their network converts into GROWTH via word of mouth or visibility on their fan’s personal pages.  For example, when someone comments on a companies fan page, that comment thread will show up on wall posts and news feeds to their friends friends.  Let me put it another way.  If you’re INVESTING in interaction, OTHERS that may have never even heard of your market but are connected with people who are your fans will SEE YOUR CONTENT.  This in turn GROWS YOUR MARKET indirectly.  All of this is a result of your time and investment in your current fan base, and social network connections.

The same applies to print.  If you’re using the same commercial or print piece that your company has used for 30 years, yet are updating your online elements with fresh new content via video and picture resources online, why would you expect anyone to look at your print piece?  Even if you’re promoting your social networking connection points via the print piece, visually you’ve turned off your audience to your message because they have come to expect THE SAME OLD THING from you.