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.

3) “A man that WANTS friends must show himself friendly”-  

The ancient verse that states this has become true in a whole new level with today’s social networking structure.  It’s NOT just enough for you to build a page, or a site, or have an account to market to people.  If you WANT fans, and you WANT MARKET GROWTH you not only have to build the pages and content, but invite people to your network and ask to be THEIR friend, or become a FAN of their page as well.  YES this can even prove advantageous even between competitors or similar product distributors or organizations.  The MORE YOU NETWORK and loose the “exclusivity syndrome” the MORE PEOPLE WILL CONNECT WITH YOU.  As a result you’ll find SUCCESSFUL RESULTS of marketing and support from individuals who may not have been familiar with you or your products.

Remember the kid at the playground that was crying on the bench because they didn’t have any friends to play with?  The teacher would tell them that they have to be a friend and PLAY NICE in order to MAKE FRIENDS and KEEP THEM.  The same playground rules apply here no matter how old, astute, or “mature” you think you are.

I know what you’re thinking, “How does this apply to traditional and social media/networking integration?”  It’s quite simple.  You’ve seen combination commercials where computer manufacturers team up with movies to show the power of their products, and how they were used to create special effects.  You've even watched software companies like Microsoft stepped outside of their operating system box to team up with Ford for car media and driver control integration.  The more you connect YOUR product, or TEAM UP with others and SHARE YOUR MARKET the more diverse your investment AND market base becomes.

4) YOUR success and failure metrics MAY NOT be the same as others-

Too often people set their bars in a different universe, then they can’t wonder why ON EARTH they can’t attain their goals.  Just because on Twitter Ellen Degeneres has over 4 million followers WHY ON EARTH do you expect to get that many?  Do you have a hit afternoon TV show, or are you an Actor or Socialite like Ashton Kutcher or Kim Kardashian?  Then why are you expecting to draw that many followers?  If you have a localized product, or are focused on a specific cause your numbers might only be in the thousands or tens of thousands at most.  THAT should be considered SUCCESSFUL.

Developing metrics of success based on YOUR MARKET, and understanding the volume and potential of YOUR AUDIENCE is a key difference from a winning game plan and strategies that are doomed before they’re even started.  Build YOUR success based on GRADUAL GOALS if you don’t know the size of your market or audience.  Using online analytic tools will help to make informative decisions in this process.  Volume information that you’ve gathered based on head counts at public events, trade show interest, or discount or coupon uses will help in determining what levels you should target and expect to obtain.

DON’T burn out on the mere basis of expecting to accomplish someone else's standards of success.  Finding the levels by which to make sure your bar isn’t set too low will help in GROWING YOUR POTENTIAL.  Recalibrating your goals on a CONSISTENT CYCLE is critical in continuing growth AND SUCCESS with your social networking connections.

In the same way you may or may not be using traditional promotional methods (i.e. radio, news paper, television).  Developing your mile stones of success based on previous history with these traditional methods is a great start in developing your plan if you don’t know where to start, or what the volume should be when expecting results.  MAKE SURE if you start out with your traditional media success as the reference point for goals in social networking, that you plan for a REVIEW AND REVISION within 6-12 months to recalibrate based on your progress.  Your progress and growth with fan pages and Twitter followers may be more than what you had anticipated.  If your goals aren’t realigned then YOU ARE HOLDING BACK YOUR SUCESS POTENTIAL with who you can reach.  In the same way, your blanket marketing done on television may have estimated your audience at 3 million, but you are only finding 500 followers are reading what you are tweeting.  Determining why, or if you’re targeting your market the right way will help in realigning goals based on who is REALLY interested in you.

5) Content IS KING-

If CNN.com only updated their content once a week or the Wall Street Journal only refreshed their site once a month, how many users do you think they would have?  Why do you think people are drawn to their sites daily by the 100,000’s of hits?  It’s ALL ABOUT THE CONTENT.

Even though what you may have to say isn’t on a constant basis throughout the day, finding the balance between too much and too little is crucial for your viewers AND YOUR TEAM.  Having content that is released only randomly will bring no results and at best just random hits to your site or your network connections.  Updating too much just to update turns into a spammish mentality which will encourage people to click on the dreaded “un-friend,” “un-follow,” or “hide” type button.  

The same applies to your print.  If there is FRESH content that is popular on your social networking sites that you’ve posted, consider using it in print pieces to help capture eyes in the weekend paper.  In turn you can use this to promote your social networking places of contact to further build that community.

Do you see how these are all relating and can work with each other?  It’s incredible once a game plan of integration is engaged. SUCCESS then happens not just on one front, but on ALL marketing fronts.

Whatever you determine make sure that your schedule of release of content is CONSISTENT, and what you deliver to your fan base is RELEVANT to your BRAND AND PRODUCT.  Uploading pictures of your dogs on the couch should be left on your personal page, and not content for your jewelry stores fan page.  Unless you’re now showing off the ever popular poodle pendant line for the latest release.  This isn’t saying that you shouldn’t take a light hearted or personal approach to your content or media, but make sure you DELIVER CONSISTENCY IN YOUR MESSAGE with your content regardless of using words, pictures, or video.

Having a social networking policy will help you and your company UNDERSTAND the BOUNDARIES, and REINFORCE what DIRECTIONS your goals should point you towards with success.  Taking these 5 points into consideration will help point you in the right direction for developing a game plan of success and uniformity between both print and social networking.