Create a social 36
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he rapid growth of social media over the last decade has seen organisations having to respond and react quickly, ensuring that they have a presence on this constantly evolving channel.
service, information dissemination, research and development, changing perceptions, raising awareness and much more. It is important to set the business goals which social media will support, e.g. raise brand awareness or grow market share; with no business plan you’ll find it difficult to understand if your social media strategy is working.
This quick adoption of social media has often led to organisation’s ‘doing’ social media because they feel they have to, rather than ensuring it has a purpose and delivers impact.
Since the dawn of time, marketing has been about putting the customer at the heart of everything that we do, and this is more important now than ever before given that social media provides a two-way channel for customers to shape and influence conversations and other customers. In order to satisfy their needs appropriately we need to ensure we know everything about them for example wow old are they, who influences them, what are they interested in and who currently has their attention?
As marketers we are often quizzed by the management team to demonstrate the value of social media and despite social media being able to provide a wealth of data, many struggle to answer the questions. But how can we measure impact if we don’t know what we are hoping our social media will achieve in the first place? To resolve this, it’s important to take a strategic approach by asking a few fundamental questions. The first is to ask is what do you want your social media to achieve? There are many ways social media can help to drive business forward, including: stakeholder satisfaction, customer
A Forward Thinking Network.
When we have developed a clear understanding of our target audience, we are then able to identify the appropriate channels and messages to reach them. The first step is to identify the people who will be delivering your social media and then ensure you have a process for delivering content, and importantly responding to reactions from potential customers.
