Connecting Socially 2.0

Social Media: practices and technologies that allow people to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives. A conversation that can be held in many different formats -- including public venues such as Facebook or Twitter, or company-controlled blogs or video channels.

Conversations are not new. But social media has taken the everyday interaction to a whole new scale. Geography is not a barrier, time becomes less important, and a lone voice can direct the opinions of a potentially unlimited audience.

Similar to the Internet itself, Social Media is clearly a part of the marketing mix that is here to stay. Specific tactics, sites, and activities may or may not catch on and become permanent, but the basic reality of American consumers wanting to interact directly with each other and with brands and companies is a permanent fixture…. yet still in its infancy.

In fact, the desire to connect and communicate has been a part of the Internet since the very beginning. One of the very first huge viral success stories was hotmail, when we could only ‘join’ if someone shared a link with us first. Remember email chains? Interesting cartoons made of keyboard characters? The requests for business cards by a dying boy in England? And the strange rumors still persist. It wasn’t long before marketers figured out email, and now it’s the highest ROI online tactic.

But Social Media packs a much bigger ROI potential than email because as ‘media’, it’s free. No cost to communicate. Yet, to coin a phrase, there is no free lunch here. Planning and experience design are paramount, and social channels can do more harm than good without regular care and maintenance.

This time last year everyone was ‘experimenting’ and ‘building and trying’. Now it seems that most marketers have learned initial lessons about resource limitations and their target consumer behaviors, and are thinking it’s time to par back to what really works. That’s great for tactics tried, but what about the new ones? The next big one?

Proven Process

I’ve developed a three step process to success:

Step 1: Every successful marketing effort begins with a well crafted Plan. A well crafted and demonstrably positive effort balances your business and communication goals against the needs and desires of your target customers. So what type of interactions do you want to encourage? Where – on a public forum or through a company channel? And what are the priorities?

Step 2: Implementation seems straight forward, research how to get it right and launch! But to keep a social platform going, it has to have constant and ongoing interaction and updating. This makes these programs significantly different from other marketing efforts, rather than being a ‘campaign’ or ‘season’ it’s forever.

Step 3: Evaluation is vital. With the constantly changing social environment, it’s important to determine if programs are having the desired result. I often find that some tactics will take off and become more time consuming than anticipated, while others just don’t quite work out. Keeping up an experience that isn’t quite producing without trying to fix it is a sure interaction killer, and potentially damaging to your brand.

Email me at karlgseyfert@gmail.com if you'd like more detail around the three steps to success!