Part One discussed how to try and avoid entering into social media activity without a clear strategy, and ownership of social media within a business. There are other important areas which also need to be looked to prevent any chance of social media issues within your business.
Companies need to be consistent and regular as regards participation with their community in the social sphere. It can be easy to get a full headwind when beginning a social media strategy, then after an initial burst of energy, let it slide due to commitments elsewhere. This will result in a real loss of progress, as not only are you not offering new information to your audience, but your community will also think you have nothing new or interesting to tell them about.
It’s common knowledge that the most successful blogs are the ones that have a consistent flow of content being pushed out. Essentially, the more content you are able to deliver to your community, the more your community will provide feedback and interact with you. So make sure you keep the information flow being pushed out to social media portals as regular, relevant, and interesting as you can.
If you are thinking of tasking someone with social media duties within your company, try and make sure it is someone who believes in the brand and is confident enough to express the views to, and communicate with, your audience. When someone is handling social media on behalf of a brand, they must exude confidence, as essentially they are the voice of the company in this area.
In my opinion, it is worse to be a shrinking violet when representing a brand in social media and stay silent, than it is to stay confident and deliver a quick and timely response, whether you are right or wrong, with belief in what you are expressing. A healthy dialogue with a customer where you both have differing opinions, is much better than them thinking you are ignoring them.
My next blog will be a continuation of this theme, and will touch upon the level of importance of data collection and analysis, how to represent your brand and how to tackle social media if no one in your team has that speciality on their CV.
