Can Social Media Work for you? By Lindsay Grubb

Important questions that you need to ask yourself before jumping on the bandwidth wagon! A company I worked with recently was discussing social media. The conversation around the table centred on how “everybody” is doing it now. The team was divided. Half the table felt that they should pick up the call to social media arms and run with it, the other half felt that it could do more harm than good. I’m not usually one to sit on the fence, but they were both right! For starters, one needs to accept that social media is here to stay, whether it’s Face Book, LinkedIn, Twitter, or a blog on their website more and more companies are using social media marketing to reach their current and potential customers. Some are doing it more successfully than others. There are important things to consider before diving headlong into this techno-ocean.

Has your management team sat down and come to a consensus on moving forward and using any or all of the social media marketing options? Without this consensus, your social media marketing will fail dismally. One half of your organisation will launch headlong into the challenge (because it is a challenge), and the other will hold back fearing change in the status quo. If your top management is not on board, your foray into social media will fizzle before it’s sparked. Remember you lead by example, if top management has bought into the idea, the rest will follow.

Have you set attainable social media goals for the year ahead? It is no good to say “let’s do everything” and then achieve nothing. Select a few of the social media options, whether it is the company newsletter / blog which allows staff to voice ideas and opinions which could benefit and strengthen the organisation, or make a decision to host a blog on your company website where current and potential customers can ask questions, or voice opinions about your product or services.

Will you be able to respond to the queries and statements within a three hour period via the chosen social media? It is completely unacceptable for you to have a vehicle on which your customers can post queries or comments and then not respond to them. You need to treat people’s comments with respect and respond to them quickly. Nothing travels as quickly as negative feedback about an organisation.

Are your products and or services up to scratch? If your product is rubbish, or your service is useless – DON’T entertain thoughts of social media marketing. Bad products and services and the companies that provide them are found out quickly and again, nothing travels as quickly as negative feedback from frustrated customers.

Have you made sure you can sustain your social media marketing? It’s like a marriage; don’t get into it if you don’t plan on staying for the long haul. Have you made sure there is an employee in your organisation who is the social marketing champion, whose responsibility it is to ensure that the company is responding timeously to queries and comments, who is updating your special offers and important news regularly?

Are you prepared to hear what your internal and external publics have to say about you? It’s no good mining the information you receive via your social media marketing and then putting the information away without reading it. You need to really listen to what your customers have to say, and respond in a positive manner. If you are offering a product on your site that a competitor is selling at a much cheaper rate, and your customers are pointing this out to you, don’t ignore them, listen to what they are saying and respond politely to them, perhaps pointing out the valid reasons that your product is more costly. If you ignore them, they will simply purchase the product

from your opposition, and that is not just a current sale lost, but is potentially a loss of future sales as well, through the perception of poor customer service and unreasonably high prices.

Have you created a social media policy within your organisation? What are the rules surrounding employees use of social media options during work and after hours. As we all know, there are few things more powerful than an unhappy employee discussing the organisation on their personal social media sites. By the same token, will you encourage your employees to make use of the company’s social media marketing for the good of the organisation?

It’s not an easy decision to make to use social media marketing. There are more options appearing on a daily basis that it’s hard to keep with the changes. People by nature are fickle and they flit from Face Book to Twitter to their Word Press blogs faster than they change restaurants and night clubs. Be brave enough to have an open forum in your organisation to discuss the options and always be prepared to listen to what your staff has to say. Make a choice in which direction you plan to head and stick with it for the long haul! Good luck, happy tweeting, or Face Booking or…