As corporate America continues to invest in Social Media Marketing, the board room discussions have turned towards the management of the new media sources being implemented into existing marketing plans as well as how the new media outlets change their internal marketing processes.
It goes without saying that Social Media Marketing offers a much more interactive aspect to any corporate marketing plan, but how does that have an effect on your staff, your marketing investment of both time and funds? There are a few simple miscalculations that can derail your Social Media Marketing plan before your very first post; tweet or friend request is made. Consider these points as you plan out your Social Media Marketing integration.
Prioritize the Effort Internally
The most difficult aspect of changing internal processes is ensuring that the manpower exists to cover new time requirements for the work entailed. Social Media, although highly cost-effective, is an interactive form of marketing. Therefore, it takes daily maintenance and interaction from a member, or members, of your staff that have the time to set aside the time to respond to comments, update new posts and comment on connections news and content.
Often times, deadlines, meetings or special projects can usurp the time needed for Social Media interaction. Be sure the staff you align with your Social Media Marketing goals is aware of the time requirements to make it successful.
Even companies that outsource their Social Media Marketing will need a point person to work with the service provider to maintain that the marketing efforts mirror the existing marketing goals. By building a strong provider-client relationship, the need to micromanage all aspects of Social Media Marketing is reduced significantly.
Emphasize your Brands Voice in the Market
As noted, there is a time investment involved when utilizing Social Media Marketing (SMM) to reach out to a target market and if the time is not spent in the right places, the SMM projects can become unmanageable.
When planning out a SMM timetable, place the emphases on the interaction with your existing connections combined with reaching out to new potential contacts, followed by researching and sharing informative and engaging content for your connections and finally spend time monitoring the response to your efforts. Often times, the focus on metrics can overtake the focus on site interaction, and while SMM is about expanding your brand awareness through networking, the real distinction that SMM offers is the ability to speak, with a human voice, to your target market based on their interests and focus. Pay attention to your network size, of course, but emphasize your voice in the market first.
Consider the Goals
Your Social Media Marketing budget highly depends on the goals you have for this aspect of your marketing plan. Do you intend to use your SMM for building your brand awareness in a new sector or with a new audience? Is your SMM intended to supplement your more traditional marketing efforts online? Or maybe you are using SMM as a lead generator for new prospects. Whatever the goals of your Social Media Marketing, you need to decide what purpose it will fill BEFORE you set a budget for your efforts.
Your SMM budget depends on the site you intend to use, the fee-based services that can help you reach your goals and the time your staff may have to spend interacting with social media service providers or producing content for sites, pages and profiles. Again, there is an often-underestimated time investment with Social Media that must be applied to see results.
Like any other marketing efforts your company may invest in, your Social Media Marketing will benefit from a detailed, well-thought out plan, focusing on the points mentioned above. Manage these aspects internally so you can be sure that your SMM drives the marketing goals it was intended for successfully.