Social Media Clutter and How to Cut Through It!

Social Media Clutter?  Really?  Well thanks to Forrester Research for stating the blindingly obvious.  Do you have a Social Media Strategy?  Do you feel like you’re getting results?  Can you measure those results?  Am I coming at you too fast?  Yes…

Whether you like it or not you need a Social Media Strategy.  First, Start with you Business Strategy.  Why?  Your Social Media Strategy needs to be congruent with your overall Business Plan and Marketing Plans.   Click the links to read more about Business Plans, Medieval Marketing, Google’s Guide to SEO, the Top 5 SEO Tips, and Twitter as your Corporate Bumper Sticker.  With your Business Strategy in mind and refreshed on you USP and Tag-line it’s time to go to work!

What makes for a good Social Media Strategy?

The same thing as any other good marketing campaign: creativity, consistency and repetition.  It is very important that you make your impression over and over in a consistent manner.  You also have to have an edge!  Something that will inherently stand out from the background noise.  The single biggest way to do this is to first know whom you are targeting!   Listen, do you actually use Facebook?   Let’s look at a page to illustrate the issues:

The typical Facebook user has lots of distraction online.  And we haven’t even talked about games yet!  So how do you cut through the clutter and get their attention?  You need a several pronged attack.

The Hydra-headed approach to Social Media (by he who is without hair):

• Capture Social Data
  1. Get, and use with permission, your customers e-mail information.
  2. Entice them join your Twitter feed and Like your Facebook page.
• Use e-mail promotions to reinforce Web & Social Presence
  1. Do not just build it, they will not come.
  2. Use a Constant Contact like service to consistently send out emails.
  3. Make the emails valuable with good discounts, tidbits of information, or incentives.
  4. Refer back always to your web presences.
• Run contests and give aways
  1. People like contests!
  2. An e-mail trigger them to go to the web site for a special promotion or first X who register online get Y.
• Be fun & Alive
  1. Dry usually doesn’t win anything but deodorant commercials.
  2. Try to inject some wit or spin into your emails.
  3. Be alive means keep your material Fresh and up-to-date!
  4. Kiss of death is to entice someone to come to your site and it is obviously untended or out of date.
• Twitter golden nuggets not McNuggets
  
  1. Please don’t Tweet because you have not Twittered in a awhile!
  2. Use Calls to Action whenever possible.
  3. Use shortlinks to save space, an example is this: http://linkd.in/aSDRHj
• Be Consistent across platforms!
  1. Everyone knows the Golden Arches — keep consistent schemes across your platforms.
  2. Build your Brand Identity, Logo, colors, Tag-lines, USP if you do not already have one.
  3. Seeing a consistent message and Brand Identify across media and platforms reinforces your Brand and helps you cut through the clutter instead of adding to it!

All of this can and should be measured.  Fire your marketing person if they tell you that they cannot measure it.  For more information or help with your Social Media Marketing Plan call us 484-639-9789!