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In my experience, one of the toughest things for companies to grasp when building a social media strategy is that they need to write the definition for their own success.
When it comes to social media, objectives are different for everyone. That’s the point. You can take your message to your audience in a way that fits what you want to achieve.
We’ve talked about this before on the blog (see Three Steps for SocMed Solution Shopping), but it’s becoming more important as more companies create legit strategies.
So, if we come to a demo and ask what you are looking for when it comes to social media monitoring, take a second to think it through. Define your own goals and objectives.
If you have no idea where to start, head to the whiteboard and have an old-fashioned brainstorming session. Bring a representative from every department (sales, marketing, HR, etc.) They will all have different ideas and voices on the value of your results. If they (or you) need a better understanding of why social media and monitoring matters, check out our recent presentation given at Magnet Interactive.
Also, if each department with a valuable interest has access to your data, it can keep your company on the same page while satisfying individual needs. Sales can identify potential clients, marketing can form strategy around results, communications can respond quickly to crises, and HR can police potential problems with employees. All these different departments can get these insights from the same data set.
Ask the group questions like…
- Do you respond to your audience online?
- If yes, are you satisfied with your response time?
- Do you want to improve customer service?
- What about sales?
- Do you want to increase your brand loyalty?
- Should you monitor specific campaigns or just your overall presence?
- … Or both?
The list goes on…
Make it clear what you want, and your monitoring software should be flexible enough to give you what you need.
What are some of your goals? What are suggestions you give to clients when it comes to developing strategy?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Setting objectives be it for a social media campaign or for more traditional communications/PR projects just makes sense. The more specific and realistic the desired objectives, the greater chance of them being achieved.
The best tip of all is ask tons of questions from every internal stakeholder that has a potential touch on the proposed campaign. They will be much happier at the other end.