The WHY of Social Media

As important and powerful as social media is to an organizations overall communications strategy, it is no secret that it has also become a big “me-too” bandwagon (heck- we’ve jumped on it ourselves). In order to help our clients successfully navigate the social media landscape, we’ve developed a simplified methodology for evaluating and crafting social media programs. Simply put, it's our "Five W’s and One H of Social Media" (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How).  Once we determine the “Who” (which we’ll cover in another post) we challenge our clients to stop and ask themselves “Why?”. The fact is, no brand should jump into the social media sea without having a solid reason for doing so. Put another way – an inactive or unresponsive Twitter account is worse than no account at all.

So next time you think to yourself or hear from your clients “We need to be on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc.”, take pause and explore “Why”...

WHY?

You have content that you want to share

• DO create a destination for interested parties to gather and contribute
• DON’T bore people with meaningless self-promotion - give them something of value
  

You want to strengthen/ build relationships with customers

• DO make it easy for them to “find” you
• DO engage them and make it FUN!
• DON’T make it all about you - it’s always about them
  

You want to facilitate customer feedback and questions

• DO use as a customer service tool (answer questions, address complaints & compliments, conduct mini-focus groups)
• DON’T wait for the complaints to come to you - seek them out and address
  

You want to drive trial or conversion

• DO offer them something of value in return (information, access, deals )
  

You want to enable and/or engage in a conversation that is already a happening

• DO seek out your target in places where they already frequent and join the conversation there
• DO be careful to follow the social norms & tone of the given site, group, forum etc.