It’s beneficial to think of social media marketing as a process. Like any business process you plan, document, measure and get more efficient all the time. Seeing social marketing from this point of view makes it much easier to think and plan for the long-term. Taking the long-view also allows you to take advantage of the continual feedback loops that exist as your market lets you know what they think about your activity. As your understanding of your market develops, you will no longer see comments as a threat, but as an opportunity to continually improve your approach until you have it right – and create a significant competitive advantage in doing so.

As a practical step I recommend developing a rolling 12 month plan. It should detail the content that will be created, who will be doing it and what actions need to be taken to get it distributed online. Planning this far in advance allows your company to recognise the long term investment timeframe. It will also allow you to set appropriate KPIs. It is vital to realise that the plan is a tool. You will still need to be flexible and responsive to customer behaviour. It should form the foundation that drives the changes necessary to succeed, and so will necessarily take some time to develop .

Every phase in your social media communications process should build on the preceding one. This means documenting and reviewing what works and what doesn’t. This then becomes a cycle: plan your next communication, execute the program, check how effective it is, act on the data and then back to the planning stage. This continual improvement approach will allow you to gather data while also ensuring you are picking up “quick-wins” along the way.

Communicating with your market will always bea fundamental part of doing business. Social media has made this quicker and easier, but also turned it into a public conversation. You may be planning on using social media as straight forward marketing channel, a customer service channel, or a channel to reward loyal and influential customers. It really doesn’t matter what the communications strategy is as long as you treat it as a process. This is  your key to success.

Social media can seem like a chaotic environment full of risks and uncertainties, especially as you are starting out. Collecting and analysing the data you collect over time will see those risks fade. And then you are just managing a process, like any other in your organisation.

Most business leaders now recognise just how important the social media communication channel has now become. However, constantly creating content can be an operational challenge for some businesses. Having a ‘frequently asked questions’ area on your website is no longer enough, and constantly creating content for a blog can be time consuming.

Fortunately YouTube makes putting a human face to a brand cheap, easy and effective. Even President Obama has been answering questions posed by the American public through YouTube since coming into power. The sensitivity of the subject matter determines the format; either live or prerecorded. This creates a sense of Obama being accessible, open to debate, and concerned about what the public are thinking.

Video blogging or vlogging, as this type of content is called, is very cost effective way of connecting with your customers and stakeholders. Video content is far more engaging than large blocks of text and tends to circulate longer as it is shareable and easily watchable on almost any device.

Video can actually be quicker and easier to manage than writing a blog. It is possible to use Facebook or Twitter to engage with your customers and discover what they would like to know. From there it is simply a matter of jumping in front of a camera and answering these questions simply and directly.

A good example of this type of would be if a company was going through a significant change. A forum to ask questions could easily be set up on Facebook and stakeholders could then ask and vote on questions. Each month the CEO could answer the top 10 questions.

There are companies doing this already. Deloitte Australia is one great example of a company that has developed video as a primary communications channel. A quick search on Google will find many others. Some companies get as many of their senior staff in front of the camera as possible to help develop their ‘thought leadership’ position while others just focus on the leadership team. Some choose make professional looking videos with a consistent brand image while other opt for speed and settle for a more raw look. There is no “right” way to create a video channel for your business but it is worth developing a strategy and being consistent.

So get over being ‘camera shy’, save yourself a lot of time and start thinking about how you could replace hours of writing and editing content for your website by spending a few minutes in front of a video camera. After all, who doesn’t want to be on TV?

Knowing what to ask and how to resource is increadibly important when developing a social strategy, so here are 6 simple steps to get you kicked off.

Define your voice: It is important to approach social media with a defined voice that is aligned to your brand. Online communication works best when you are not pushing a product but are communicating in a more subtle way. The best way to develop a social media ‘voice’ is to start by asking yourself “what does my market really want to know?”.

Segment you audience: Use the information you have to target the right audience. Don’t blindly charge into social media. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and explore what they discuss about your brand, your competition or your category online. Taking this in, you will know where your target audience is active and you can start from there. You save lot of time and effort in doing this, making it easier to connect with them.

Know what success looks like: Your social media marketing strategy needs to be aligned to your business objectives. Collecting “likes” on Facebook and measuring hits to your website might be a good start but there must be a longer term plan in place – a plan that ensures that this activity is being converted into sales or leads.

Give to recieve: Social media works best when you think about it as a platform to build lasting relationships. If your brand is perceived to be proactive and responsive you will gain trust in the market place. Setting up a social media customer service channel will show that you are there to help as well as listen. As apposed to being a risk, it actually allows you to deal with issues quickly before they get out of hand. Helping people with their issues and questions will also help them make a buying decision.

Collect data: Social media is awash with demographic and psychometric data. Get a plan in place to collect and utilise it. Mass messaging does not work online. Personalised and targeted messaging does. It will also help you plan how to use platforms like Google AdWords and Facebook advertising, increasing their effectivity and saving you money.

Plan your content: Building relationships can take time. Planning your content so it flows and tells a coherent story at every touchpoint can reduce the time needed to move your audience through the sales pipeline.

So a social strategy is not about hiring a bunch of teenagers who ‘get social media’. It needs to be about delivering results and driving your business objectives. Get it right and it will deliver benefits throughout your organisation.

Marketing and public relations communications through social media can be complicated. There are a vast number of networks and platforms, all interlinked, allowing messages to spread extremely quickly. For those not used to online communications this can seem like a mysterious and dangerous world governed by technology geniuses and teenagers, and in the most part the people who are building and marketing these networks tend to promote this stereotype. This is big part of the problem. For many brands this creates a sense of fear; the fear creates the desire to control. In the end it is this desire to control a vast and dynamic human network that leads to systemic failures in social media communications. You can control the software but you can’t control the way people use it.

The second, and most important part in the equation is around the messaging itself. What some brands have failed to identify is that the rules have significantly changed. For many demographics social media is how they discover news and messages. It is not through press releases, or TV ads but through peer recommendations and online discussions. Online is now the thin end of the wedge, the mainstream media is increasingly starting to play a supporting role. What this means is that brands no longer get to tell the consumer what to think any more. They need to spend more time developing real relationships with their customers. They need to be responsive. And they must  respect the individual and tell the truth.

It is in the arenas of honestly and integrity where almost every social media disaster of the last 12 months played out.  People can sniff out a lie easily – and they will expose it when they find one. As a group they will ask the brand to come clean, and if their demand is not met they will respond. They now have the power and they will exercise it. On the flip side, if a brand that has made a mistake deals with quickly, honestly and bravely the issue can quickly be turned into a positive.

Brands no longer have a choice about whether or not to participate in social media. They must be active or risk becoming irrelevant. What is important to realise is that markets take all interactions through social media as deeply personal experiences. This means that they expect a level of respect – one that does not always exist in the one-way communication world.

To manage and capitalise on this new frontier you must plan well, educate your staff, develop a clear set of communication guidelines and above all, be earnest.

But don’t be confused by the apparent meaninglessness of some interactions in the social web. What is happening may seem like a waste of time but the communications can also be profound – and you need to be a part of them.

The social web, and more specifically platforms like Facebook and Twitter, allow brands to develop relationships with their customers in ways that have never existed before. Customer loyalty has always been recognised as incredibly important, but developing metrics that measure things other than swiping a card at the point of purchase has been difficult.

Now it’s not. With a well designed and executed social media strategy, companies can identify and reward the most loyal and vocal customers. The brand evangelists who actively encourage others to purchase from their favourite brand.

The companies doing this the best are the ones who understand that they need to create a relationship with each customer – they need to recognise that each customer is unique, and reward people for interacting with the brand. Customers now have more power to voice an opinion than ever before, and they will do it whether you are participating or not. It is no longer good enough to simply treat customers as something to convert into a sale then move on. ‘Speed dating’ marketing is out, romancing is in.

The brilliant people who work for Facebook understand this better than most. In fact, they have recently changed the way that advertising works within Facebook to incentivise brands to be more active and engaging. Facebook knows that the real value from their platform comes from the engagement that creates longer term relationships. And they are now changing the game within Facebook so everybody else gets that too. It is likely that the recent changes to the Facebook platform will be game-changers for some brands. Others, particularly brands who have been looking at social media as just a broadcast channel, are going to struggle. What is certain is that Facebook’s advertising revenue is set to make another giant leap as brands are incentivised to engage with customers more – and use Facebook even more as a result.

As a marketer you have many choices about how you treat your audience. You can develop techniques that let you know who they are and how they wish to be communicated with and you can engage them in creative interesting ways – creating long term relationships. Or you can look at the customers as numbers to be churned through quickly. We all know that being treated as an individual is more effective – and now it seems there is going to be an additional financial benefit to it.

So you can view the social web as a place where people waste time and generate low value. But it is up to you, as a marketer, to change the way your customers interact with you. Social media is fast paced and there can be a lot of distractions. To really stand out you need to create meaningful experiences – that can turn into happy long term relationships.

If an individual spent a lot of time trying to control every message they heard about themselves, and responding to everything that everybody else said about them, we would, quite rightly, think that person insecure or, worse, a narcissist. But there are a number of brands which think this kind of control to be normal. From the perspective of the general population there is nothing normal about it at all.

A brand that is confronted by negative comments on the social web needs to learn a simple two-step reaction: first, see the comment as valuable feedback; and second, view that feedback as an opportunity to improve and build its relationship with customers. This is the way the the best relationships among individuals work. As anyone who has gone through a personal relationship break-up will know, relationships break down when one party believes they are not being heard.

Recently I moved house. Before I moved I bought new furniture from a very well know Australian retailer. On the day the furniture was due to be delivered the delivery team arrived and got down to work. It turned out that one piece of furniture did not fit into the lift of my new apartment building. When I called to ask how to rectify this situation the immediate response from the store was “This is your fault; you should have measured the size of your lift; there’s nothing we can do.”. Needless to say I thought this was pretty poor customer service. So I jumped onto Twitter and said as much. Of course my experience with the local service rep was not indicative of the company as a whole but it did taint my view of the brand. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The company was monitoring Twitter and used my comment as an opportunity to contact me and offer to send around a new team the next day to carry the piece furniture up the stairs. Naturally I then went back onto Twitter and gave them high praise. Our ‘conversation’ started testily but ended up well.

My case highlights the way brands should be thinking about negative comments. It’s not about your ‘mistakes’ as viewed by others. We all make them. What matters is whether you really listen and how you respond. And this is the real opportunity. I’m not suggesting that every negative comment needs a ‘fix’ – sometimes it’s enough to simply tell the customer that they have been heard. But if a comment identifies a problem you can fix then a potential brand ‘enemy’ can be turned into a brand ‘lover’ very quickly.

So don’t try to bubble-wrap your brand in entirely positive messages. Embrace the diversity of your market and realise every contact point is an opportunity to stand apart from your competition.

This idea has become increasingly important as more firms participate in social media. Companies that have used the ‘customers own the brand’ principle as a useful intellectual exercise and little more are being forced to rethink, and very quickly. In the social web you can direct, participate and engage in conversations about your brand. But so can your customers. It is a level playing field. Social media has given your customers more control of your brand than ever before. Customers that believe that their needs are not being met will let you know, along with everyone else.

Customers’ relationship with a brand is an emotional one. Every touchpoint your customers’ interact with will shape that relationship. Understanding how your market interacts with your brand, and the personality your brand conveys at each of those interactions is vitally important. Think of a time you rang a utility provider and encountered someone on the end of the phone who was rude. For most of us the emotional response to this is “I don’t like this company”. We look for other information to support this view. We talk to friends and share experiences. The emotional connection with the brand has been assigned. Changing this type of entrenched negative view is no easy task.

But social media as a touchpoint is different because your customers’ views are visible. And you can respond. Social media platforms allow customers to interact with your brand in much the same way that they do with their friends. They treat it as a person. If your social media strategy recognises that, you can make sure your brand has a personality with clear emotional cues. If you don’t then your customers will assign a personality for you. And it may be not be the personality that you want.

So remember, a brand is more than a just a logo. Take the time to build a brand strategy that incorporates interaction in the social web. Define the personality and make sure your business understands it and can express it – particularly online. Opting out is much more risky than participating in social media. Get it right the rewards will be easy to see.

What’s actually happening is quite profound. There is a cultural shift happening at the moment that every retailer needs to come to grips with – or risk fading into obscurity.

During the late eighties, through the nineties and into the new millennium, the progression of technologies touted as ‘bringing everyone together’ have actually had the reverse effect. This, partnered with the increasing pace of globalisation, has resulted in a decline in local community sentiment. Many social sub-groups have begun to feel disenfranchised.

By the time social media platforms like MySpace and Facebook entered the scene, there was already a groundswell focussing on our the human desire to feel more socially connected. The technology that underpinned social platforms had already been around for a very long time. Facebook and the like did not create the ‘social’ craze, they essentially capitalised on a social movement that was well under way.

This new connectivity has evolved quickly, driven in the most part by innovation meeting demand. The space is now beginning to mature. Many of the social interactions are somewhat superficial, but this too will evolve.

By contrast, traditional retail has become dominated by chain stores with highly impersonal brand experiences – exactly what people have been moving away from.

Online stores can gather data about users and demonstrate an understanding of them as people. Your name is displayed, your preferences can be stored, and you can connect and communicate with people directly from the online store – people you know, or even people you don’t know but share similar interests with.

The offline retail industry needs to learn how to provide this level of connectivity. There is a need to blend social media and mobile technology into everything the retailer does. The data generated by the customers should be viewed as the most valuable asset retailers have, as the best online brands do. Online sales and offline sales need to be viewed as a single brand experience – because this is how your customers see it.

Social media is not going away. The brands, platforms and tools will change, but the culture of online connectivity and social sharing is here to stay – and is only going to gather momentum. The time to understand social media, and utilise it as a strategic growth tool, is right now. Your customers are looking for a connection with your brand, and it is possible to make that connection more meaningful both online and in-store.

In this new world order, where experience is everything, not changing means the end. The evolution of retail is not about foot traffic – it’s about social traffic.

Before you can begin a thought leadership strategy there are a few things to consider: who are your companies thought leaders, who are the influencers in your network, how often can you create content and how will you distribute it? It is necessary to start to document each of these points. They will evolve over time but let’s look at the starting points.

Every professional service company has at least one thought leader. If you are a small consultancy you may be the one and only. If the company is bigger then it is best to try and get more than one person being a thought leader. This will put less pressure on one person and will exponentially grow the network you have influence over.

You then need to think about who the influencers in your network are. If you use LinkedIn it can be relatively easy to do this. The ones that have the most connections and are most active tend to be the most influential. It can get more complicated than this but in general that’s a great place to start.

It is important to try and plan regular updates to the thought leadership strategy. The first place most companies start is writing short pieces for their own blog. Creating a content roster for this activity is one way to make sure that everybody is participating in the thought leadership process. Try and avoid a flurry of activity followed by a long silence. If you develop a following and then simply stop because you get too busy then you run the risk of disappointing your market.

If you do develop a strategy around your blog you then need to think about distributing your content so it gets in front of more people. One mistake that is easy to make is assuming that people will keep coming back to your site or blog. Chances are they won’t as most of them are as busy as you are. Make sure you employ tools and techniques that automatically send your intent to various social platforms while also making sure you content is easy to share.

The ex CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, is a great example of a business leader who developed a thought leadership strategy. He had a blog where he openly discussed what was on his mind. And he invited comments from the public. Importantly, he tried to answer as many of those comments as possible, especially the negative ones. Over time this created a culture of honesty and a focus around customer service.

This is what being a thought leader is all about. You know a lot about your particular speciality – that covers the thought. How you express that, and
how you communicate with your market as you do so is where the leadership part come into play. If your up to the job your market is looking for a leader.

Like most aspects of running a business, rather than focusing on products or prices, it is best to focus on outcomes and objectives. In this article we will explore how social media monitoring works, and discuss what to look for when making choices.

Social media monitoring tools are similar to search engines in that they look through vast quantities of data and serve up relevant results. At a basic level the results show mentions of your company or brand name. There are many free tools that do this simple task well. But to obtain real intelligence, much deeper insights are needed. This is where more sophisticated tools shine. Each one has it’s strengths and weaknesses, so knowing how to ask the right questions becomes very important.

The ‘social web’ consists of social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but it also covers blogs, special interest forums, wikis and any website that has an area where people can leave comments. Some of these platforms allow anonymous interaction, others ask for more detailed personal information. Understanding where your market is, is important. A basic search with a good monitoring tool should be able to give you this information quickly.

From this point you can start to dive into the data to obtain more meaningful insights. Basic demographic information – such as age and gender – can help you define segments quickly, and start to define the culture and language of the different groups. Many tools allow you to see how ‘important’ different users are – meaning you can pinpoint the influencers – positive and negative – very quickly, and develop strategies to manage them.

Geo-location information is being shared via smart phones with GPS functionality at an ever increasing rate. This allows you to know where people were when a certain comment was made. If you are looking at your own brand or product category, this can be helpful when thinking about where to focus resources. However, it can be far more powerful when you are monitoring your competitors. Knowing where your competitors are performing poorly can allow you to direct marketing spend to that area, and pick up the ‘low hanging fruit’.

Better social monitoring platforms also have a dictionary you can program, allowing you to apply context or meaning to words and sentences. The phrase ‘fully sick’ may be very negative for one demographic group and very positive for another. Once the meaning is developed, it then becomes reasonably straight forward to understand the sentiment, what people think about your brand, your competitor or anything else you choose to monitor.

In the end, listening to social media is about developing a business intelligence strategy. Your people in your market are having conversations every day. These conversations can provide valuable insights. If you get it right, it can be like running a never ending focus group. But, much like real life, it’s important to know ‘how’ to listen.