What we need to understand about social media before posting.

In a recent survey of businesses, Marketingsherpa reported that the three top ranking objectives for businesses utilising social media were as follows;

1. Increase web traffic through social media integration. 
2. Improve brand awareness or reputation 
3. Developing an effective and methodical strategy for social media. 

It's the last one that strikes me as somewhat odd? 51% of those polled said that using social media was in fact aimed at developing an effective and methodical strategy for that medium. I have to ask the question if you haven't already thought through the strategy for using social media what are you doing? Are you just posting random blogs, occasionally telling people about a sale or something you hoping you may interest them?


It's that random nature that worries me! Let's say for instance, this was a direct mail or email campaign. Would you just send out random mails in the hope of attracting interest? Have we not learnt that you need to understand your audience, their needs and important how your service or product fulfils that need? 


Unfortunately, it would seem that we have not learnt from our early forays in email marketing. Send enough out and something will come back! Social media truly excites me for a number of reasons; it can engage with true brand advocates i.e. real people. It is relatively cheap and easy to do and it fits perfectly into an integrated communication mix. Simply look at the first two points of the survey, driving traffic and increasing brand awareness. 


So what do we need to do to avoid this randomised approach? I would say firstly, sit down and think through all the various touch points that your communications reach? This isn't just the 'push' communications but the 'pull' one's too. How are your customers, prospects and competitor's interacting with your communications and brand? Once you have created that communication touch point map, see how social media can benefit your business. 


For example, who are you going to follow? How does that benefit your business and importantly your customers? How does social media position your business? I feel that  one of the main benefits as to be the development of 'thought-leadership' for your business. How you can create core values for your business and differentiate those from your competitor's. 


Understand the nature of each social application, how does Twitter differ from Facebook? And how can you use them to communicate effectively with your customers and prospects. 


Then plan your strategy, how you are going to utilise social media. Integrated it with the current marketing communication mix. Remember the main benefits of social media, timely, interactive and it's viral nature. And add those into how you are going to utilise social media too. For example, a timed or special offer to followers. 


But above all, think through why social media.