Social media occupies a central role in today’s brand/consumer interaction space. Yet many brands rush into social media without putting a coherent strategy in place that covers resourcing, objectives and execution for their social media platforms. Here are five best practices that we’ve seen deliver good results for our clients in the real world.
1. Look beyond the likes
Consumers will not come just because a brand has built a page. Before getting started with social media, brands must ask themselves what they hope to achieve through their social media presence so that they can create an appropriate strategy. ‘Likes’ and ‘followers’ are not business objectives, though they can be useful metric for understanding reach and audience engagement.
Does the brand want to learn more about how consumers perceive its product?
Does it want to build customer relationships? Deflect calls from its call centre? Or enhance its reputation? All of the above? These are more meaningful objectives to set and measure than likes and shares, which are more about vanity than performance.
2. Accept that your customers are in control
Brands are used to being in complete control of their marketing channels.
But in social media, customers have a voice and will drive much of the conversation. This means that brands must listen rather than merely talk.
The real art in social media lies in how well a brand deals with queries, problems, complaints, and (occasionally) praise. For many organisations, succeeding in this realm will mean that they’ll need to be faster, more agile, and more transparent in how they interact with their customers.
