avoid pitfalls with a social media management system

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SUCCESSFUL LARGE-SCALE SOCIAL MEDIASTRATEGY THROUGH SEGMENTATION: Avoid Pitfalls with a Social Media Management System (SMMS)

2011 One to One Connect LLC

THE TWO MOST COMMON PITFALLS OF MANAGING A CORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

The holy grail of social media is the ability to reach end consumers more often and more reliably, on a greater scale through

channels or people they relate to and trust. But as companies embark on a social media strategy, it’s amazing how many fall

into the two most common pitfalls.

Fire hosing unrelated or non-relevant contentAlmost no one wants to hear everything you have to say. The likelihood that the person who wants to follow your current

job listings also wants to hear about deals on big screen TVs, new store openings or your latest employee survey is

minuscule. If you assume “sports fans” want to hear about everything from golf to cage fighting, then you’re hitting

your followers with a fire hose of irrelevant information that will quickly alienate them.

Inactivity, ghost town or unprofessional contentJust as common as fire hosing is the situation where there are a plethora of employees with Facebook Pages, Twitter

accounts, YouTube channels, etc., yet those employees don’t consistently say anything of value. Commonly they present

a hodge-podge of content with varying levels of

quality and consistency. At best they’re squandering

an opportunity. At worst the company looks inactive

and out of touch. There could even be pockets of

unprofessional and potentially libelous content out

there without your knowledge.

We will be exploring how to put your social media

strategy on the right track, how to rein in and resolve

these common problems. And we’ll discuss how

building the right infrastructure with a social media

management system (SMMS) can help you do it.

By definition: SMMS platforms are typically SaaS solutions that enable marketers, brand managers, and sales reps to

manage, publish to, engage with and measure large numbers of social interaction points.

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ARE YOU SOCIALLY RELEVANT?

SEGMENTATION CAN HARNESS YOUR CONNECTIONS AND BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

The first step to providing relevant content

online is to look at how your company works

o!ine. Your consumers already have

emotional and practical attachments to your

brand; some might be based on physical

location or product or service line. Or your

customers could connect with you through a

relationship with a specific sales representa-

tive or company agent.

Your social media ecosystem should mirror

and leverage those connections and

relationships.

Drive interaction by geo and local preferencesPeople are passionate about where they live, where they eat, where they buy their co"ee. Bombarding your customers

with o"ers that are geographically unavailable, or irrelevant is a sure-fire way to get them to stop following you. Don’t

miss the opportunity to enhance a message’s relevance by focusing on what the recipient already cares about:

! Franchise location they typically visit

! Stores, products or services near where they live

! Discounts or opportunities available in specific areas

! Cities they frequent; events, shows or concerts in those cities

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Segment by product, service and interest People may already be passionate about what you o"er, but you need to help them access the right pieces of informa-

tion about it. Review all topics to determine if they are too broad. A user looking for hot tips on Excel shortcuts should

not be forced to consume tidbits about Word or PowerPoint. Someone looking for deals and insights about TV technolo-

gies isn’t necessarily in the market for a computer.

! Review your content and sort it by distinct products and services

! Determine which sub-audiences are only interested in certain aspects of those products or services

! Determine where there’s overlap that can be leveraged without providing o"-topic content to a large number of

readers

Empower individual sales reps and agents People like to buy from people they know and trust. People they’re comfortable with. For many companies, these

relationships are essential to their o!ine success — and should be leveraged online as well.

! Let new customers find and follow a name and a face

! Allow customers with established o#ine relationships to continue and extend those relationships online

! Allow reps or agents to use an individual voice when addressing the people they know better than anyone else

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DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE TO BRING VALUE TO ALL OF THOSE SEGMENTS?

Not everyone in your company is a marketing genius. And even those who are, don’t have something engaging to say all

of the time. So how do you deal with locations, people and products that are segmented and manned by a diverse group

of employees? How can you put meaningful content into their hands so they consistently have relevant things to say?

Supporting and enabling them in a consistent, yet flexible and manageable way is where the capabilities of an SMMS

platform really shine. Such a platform presents a scalable way to manage many social interaction points, provide

relevant and brand consistent content, and collect actionable intelligence.

Audience-appropriate contentIn addition to content that is produced by the owners of social media Pages and accounts, an SMMS platform helps

companies produce centralized content and o"ers, then to divide that content into extremely segmented “pushes” to

channels that match specified criteria. This way an o"er can be instantly pushed to thousands of Pages and accounts, or

to the several hundred (or simple few!) that match segmentation criteria.

This focused, relevant content can dovetail nicely into separate, more one-o" content that individuals might be publish-

ing on their own, and requires no e"ort on the part of the Page owners.

Content resources available for your peopleAn SMMS platform enables your brand advocates to browse or subscribe to various content “types.” These advocates

can then review and choose content for inclusion into their social streams and to their audiences.

Feedback channels owned by the right peopleAn SMMS also lets your teams track and respond to questions or concerns raised on social media. And by significantly

segmenting your social channels, you also create focused channels for feedback. Praise, complaints and inquiries that

are extremely focused are easier to handle in a timely manner by franchise owners, store managers, sales reps or

product advocates. The resulting follow-ups will reflect a team of well-informed individuals who respond with speed and

competence.

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MEASURE AND MONITOR FOR INSIGHTS. OR ABUSE!

As you segment your messaging and empower more of your people and locations, it becomes increasingly important to keep

your finger on the pulse of your social media e"orts. This can be especially hard at scale, but there are several basic areas

that are important to monitor:

Use broad and narrow lenses to determine what is delivering results Whatever your criteria for success, be sure

you’re using an SMMS platform that gives a

clear picture across all your social media

people and channels. That way, you can see

the “forest” in addition to looking at individual

trees. This big picture view will help you assess

your overall progress, then you can delve into

areas with exceptional results to determine

how those results were achieved. Once best

practices are identified, it’s easy to dissemi-

nate the results by leveraging the scalable

content publication capabilities within your

SMMS platform.

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Quickly pounce on problems or abuse — internal or externalUnaddressed complaints, caustic comments or inappropriate behavior can quickly cause problems on venues as public

as most social media interactions. The good news is, the more you segment your social media channels, the more likely

the employees who are assigned to monitor them will be able to address complaints before they become out-of-control

problems.

An SMMS platform will constantly monitor your social media channels for problematic or urgent words and phrases, and

then it will alert the appropriate people for quick resolution. Think how challenging and time consuming it would be to

manually review hundreds or thousands of Pages individually.

Unfortunately, not all problems come from the outside. Not only can those assigned to administer social media chan-

nels fail to quickly resolve problems, sometimes they ARE the problem. Employees who o"er unapproved discounts or

sweepstakes, who vent over current issues or make unfounded product claims can do even more damage than disgrun-

tled customers.

Although keyword monitoring alone is powerful, the ability to identify and escalate internal problems is essential for an

SMMS to be truly e"ective.

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FOUR KEY TAKEAWAYS

Social media represents a new opportunity for brands to “walk amongst” their customers. In order to create a personalized

and relevant brand experience, innovative marketers are moving beyond a “single Facebook Page” approach and rapidly

evolving to a highly segmented, truly engaging social presence and messaging strategy.

Companies seeking to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity must be sure their messaging is appropriately

distributed (avoiding fire hoses of irrelevant content) and that those channels are filled with consistent and relevant content

(no complexes of ghost towns). Always be sure to:

Talk to your audiences through the people, locations and brand voices they already know and trustEmpower those people, locations and brands with relevant things to sayActively gauge your results — the forest and the treesKeep an eye on things, never let your brand run amok

A huge step toward success is leveraging the right tools and platforms to assist you in what can be a daunting undertaking. In

2010, 52% of corporate buyers had adopted an SMMS. And in 2011, indications are that the number will increase to 58% . In

this day and age of social explosion, an SMMS is a must for any brand-conscious company.



avoid pitfalls with a social media management system

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