After you've figured out why you want to use social media for your business and determined who your company will be on line, that is, which personality and personal traits will define your social media presence, the next step is to decide exactly what your social media campaign will entail.
Realize that the line between your personal personality and your company personality may seem blurred at times, to both your followers and to you, and that's not a bad thing, but if your company is going to reap the greatest benefits from social media marketing, which has significant time and resource costs, you need to be clear about the purpose and content of the campaign.
Your social media what is most closely aligned with the why. For example, if your major purpose, or why is competitive intelligence, then for that purpose all you may need to do is run or maintain topic searches on a regular basis, either yourself or via a third-party social media "clipping" service that tracks your industry and your competitors.
Here are a few more examples:
- If your primary purpose is to put a personality on your company presence to engage with existing and potential customers, then chatting, social greetings and public conversations are appropriate.
- If quality control and public relations is foremost, monitor various sites for mention of your company or products and services and be diligent in following up publicly on complaints and acknowledge praise freely. Be transparent in your quality control efforts, that is state openly that you are using social media to be sure your customers and clientele are happy and that you're interested and willing to follow up with people who have issues or questions. Note that it is possible to be baited if you use social media for quality control and it doesn't serve any good purpose for your company if you engage in debate or keep "talking" in public with someone who is unreasonable, defamatory, or clearly out to make you look bad. If you find yourself in contact with anyone whose statements or requests are out of line or wholly negative, request to take it offline for e-mail or phone resolution - no one reasonable will expect you to stay engaged in social media exchange with an obviously abusive or ridiculous complainer.
- If you company supports charitable causes or good works of others, plan to use social media freely to promote those causes or efforts. Sure, it will be obvious that you gain good P.R. from it, but nonetheless you will assist the cause or support the people or organizations that contribute and that will reflect well on you.
The simple question to ask yourself, or your advisors, or possibly even put it out on social media for involvement and feedback is, "If our company hopes to achieve X (your social media why), will it be a good thing if we do Y (your proposed social media what)?" The response may be very helpful and save you a lot of time and effort.
