The social media scene is demanding your company’s attention. Regardless of what your product or service area is, the social media network is talking about it, and you’d better be listening. What should you do about it? Here are some great social media networking tips to help you along the way. Whether you’ve just started or you’re still thinking about it, check them out. Be sure to add your own tips in the comments section and and let us know what you think!

• Social Media is, well, social. It’s personal. Remember that you’re speaking as a person, not as your business.
• Be a good listener.
• Engage. Let your listeners know that you actually are listening.
• Work it where it’s natural. Select employees who are informed, up-to-speed, and passionate about social media to connect with the people showing up in your social network.
• Adapt–and quickly. Social media changes constantly, so keep up or be left behind by your competition.
• Make it a team effort. Your front line social media people may not know all the answers that people are looking for. Make sure your internal teams support them with prompt, accurate info and answers.
• Be real.
• Tell your story, your company’s story as seen through your experience there to build confidence and loyalty, and make you better known as a company. You don’t have to tell it all at once, either.
• Analytics–web and traffic statistics–while great to have, don’t paint the whole picture. They aren’t showing you if your customers are being taken care of from their point of view. Social media conversations will tell you that, though.
• Communication builds trust and is a form of attention.
• Social media won’t solve all your business problems or customer service issues, but it can point you in the right direction.
• Be specific with how you use social media outlets and services. Create a strategy.
• Use social media to communicate your core values. Try to be real about it, so it doesn’t come off as just the cool new thing to do.
• Coordinate your social media efforts across your company. Make sure everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing. Unify your primary message.
• Make sure your brand is consistent across the social media landscape. If you aren’t branded, get that way.
• Be flexible. The conversation will change direction once you get it out there. Run with it and use it to your advantage.
• Define the type of relationship you want to have with your customers through social media. Engage your audience and show them they can participate without entering your store or picking up a phone. Use online polls, surveys, quizzes and the like to foster participation and get the pulse on what people want, care about, and pay attention to. Respond to all this input on your social media channels.
• Let your customers tell you what they want. Don’t think you have it all figured out for them.
• Define your audience. Who are you reaching out to, and why?
• Look for metrics that you can measure to see how you’re doing. Evaluate the impact that your social media work is having on your business. Where do you see it showing up? Is it showing up where you want it to? What can you do to adjust and tune it?
• At the end of the day, social media is about communicating. Don’t get too distracted with every shiny new application that appears on the social media landscape. Get good at the core tools, and look for ways to automate (ping.fm) or aggregate (tweetdeck.com) some of that to help you keep up with it.
• Create corporate policies as needed, and do your liability homework with your legal team, but remember that social media is no more radical or dangerous now than email appeared to be when it hit the business scene over 15 years ago. It’s just a new way of communicating.
• Whether you evaluate extensively or just jump right in, keep your social media efforts simple. Get out there and say hello. Try new things. Learn.
• If you outsource social media work or pay for any consulting, always get referrals from people you trust. Check references, and set clear expectations.
• Study the available social media platforms and applications to determine which ones best fit your company, products, services, and preferred model of interaction. Select the ones that will be most effective for you, and try to eliminate duplication of effort.
• Social Media is just another piece of an integrated marketing effort.
• The social media transport mechanism may be nothing like traditional public relations efforts, however, they both boil down to communications platforms, and there’s plenty of crossover.
• Taking some time to define the target audience for each message group will help you to decide when to blog or when set up social networking profiles, tweet, post, update, share images and video, or use other social media tactics.
• Start with customer expectations and find social media platforms that meet those expectations, rather than the other way around.
• Don’t rush it. It takes time.

Onward & Upward!

Eric Bryant

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