OK, so you’ve done the groundwork. You understand who you want to target and you have deep insights from which will spring hours of fireside conversation. Good. That work is never wasted. If nothing else, your use of traditional media will benefit immensely from it. You should have been doing this all along. But let’s pause some more and consider a few more questions:
· Have I (and others in my business) really understood what it means to “go social”?
There’s a big difference between having a business agenda and a social agenda. A Business agenda is about containing risk, controlling information to consumers, protection. It’s about delivering the bottom line. If your business isn’t ready for this new adventure though, the effects could be devastating. As Peter du Toit of Social MediaIQ explains “Social media is a spotlight – it just makes who you are more visible. If you have a great business and a great product it will highlight that. If your business sucks it will highlight that. What these tools do is amplify the attitude of the people who make up your business”. That said, there are examples of businesses with lousy reputations winning at social media. One is Comcast, a radical turnaround story. Click here for more details. Rule of thumb: Never dupe your leaders into endorsing a superficial strategy. As Peter du Toit points out, “There is a huge difference between having a superficial social media presence for your business and a well thought-out strategy. My suggestion: don't do superficial; it can do more harm than good”
· How comfortable is my audience with these channels?
This is vital. For reasons almost too obvious to mention. Just because Twitter is cool doesn’t mean you should use Twitter. All great entries into this space begin with a deep-dive into people’s existing habits with available platforms. And knowing that 2.5m South Africans have a Facebook account is just the start. How many are active on the platform? How many maintain blogs? What’s the split between spectators/collectors and creators/critics? The answers to this strongly dictate not only the technical (platform) choices you make but the way in which you feed content into conversations. For deeper understanding of how to run a survey of this sort, speak to Peter at SocialMediaIQ or consult this excellent presentation by the Altimeter Group.
· Is my product/brand/service worthy of an online conversation?
This is just a safety check – at some point in time, most brands will have a challenge that makes them candidates for social media. In fact, a time will come when it will be essential. But be sure people are interested in having a conversation with your brand. A great case study is how the P&G’s “Always” brand infiltrated a female teenage network called Girl Talk to dialogue as equals with an audience that is notoriously resistant to discussions about feminine hygiene.
· What will social media do that my traditional channels can’t do?
I am not a leading voice in communications strategy but common sense says that because the “social” channel is in its infancy, you should first be sure that the communication outcome you are trying to achieve is utterly impossible without traditional media. I’m all for bold moves and change but I am not for throwing the baby out with the bath water. However, seek counsel on the question because even ignoring social media is a decision in its own right. Sooner or later you will have to reconsider. Do the research and make up your mind. And it’s okay to say you’ll wait.
With that word of caution, the most spectacular results I have seen are from brands that already have high spontaneous awareness, i.e. they’ve done the hard yards above the line. It seems people are more inclined to talk about brands they know or about ideas that intrigue them. Of course there are many examples of small brands being built in social networks because the platforms allow for such clinical targeting. Look at Whole Foods, a chain of organic fruit and vegetable stores in the US. It isn’t another Nike, Starbucks or Obama – but the nature of the service they offer is ripe (npi!) for social media. Whole Foods boasts some 150 Twitter accounts, many tailored to category specific conversations e.g. cheese or wine.
Then there are those brands or businesses which, no matter how new, have technology so at their core that social media is a given – for a particularly inspiring example, look at WildEarthTV.
· The Internet is a big place, how will I build my campaign to a critical mass?
Space does not allow me to do justice to this point so I will direct you to this blog by Peter of SocialMediaIQ. This question is almost as primal as the one I ask up front – i.e. is your business ready for it? Because in the best examples, (Zappos, Whole Foods, Ford, Starbucks, Comcast), we see companies where everyone is not only empowered but in some cases expected (Zappos) to use social media as an engagement tool. This not only produces a critical mass of communicators needed for varied and diverse conversation, but a genuine, real-time window into the heart of your business.
This is why; if at all possible, you should NOT outsource your campaign to an agency professing expertise in social marketing. One reason is the numbers game – no matter how hard an agency works, it can never produce the quantity and variety of conversations that a large internal tribe could. The other is that agencies are not a genuine reflection of your business. They are a proxy and a poor one at that. So aim to drive your campaign from within the very tribe of your own business...using as many people you trust from it as fire starters. This, for many businesses, is unfortunately the ultimate stumbling block. Few can envision, the way Zappos and Ford did, a world where everyone down to the guy who processes invoices might be a vital spoke in the wheel of conversation.
An outstanding list of “don’t do social media unless...” questions are found in this great post on Penn-Olson. Highly recommended.
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