The proliferation of social media platforms has blurred the once well-defined line that separated public relations from marketing. One-way marketing messages were the rule, and public relations’ relationship-centric duties didn’t factor into the equation.
“Companies developed bad habits,” says Mark Colombo, senior vice president of digital access marketing at FedEx. “Interrupting people, targeting people, segmenting people—it felt like going to war with customers.”
With the now-firmly entrenched age of conversation, PR professionals have more and more ownership over marketing initiatives or, at the very least, they collaborate closely with marketers to create fully integrated campaigns.
Social media is the crux of many of these joint efforts, as it’s quickly becoming the best—if not the only—way to effectively reach and engage target audiences with brand messaging. It’s also rewriting the rules every day thanks to its constantly evolving nature, which has proven to create challenges and opportunities for communications executives of all types.
“Social media marketing isn’t monolithic and it covers a lot of ground,” says Chris Abraham, president and COO of Abraham & Harrison. “There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are best practices, tools, tricks and techniques to achieve greater success.”
Speaking of best practices and techniques, communications executives should consider the following to enhance their social media marketing efforts:
â–¶ Start with the goal, and then pick the social media tool that can best help you achieve it. Picking the platform and setting goals around it is the marketing equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.
“Strategy drives technology,” says Paul Gillin, principal of Paul Gillin Communications, pointing to the following as examples of social media marketing objectives:
• Build customer community;
• Counter negative publicity;
• Crisis management;
• Conversations with customers;
• Expose employee talent;
• Generate traffic to your Web site; and/or,
• Humanize the company.
Then, Gillin says, communications executives should pair the chosen goal with the appropriate social media tool(s), each of which comes with its own advantages and disadvantages, such as:
• Discussion Forums: Tactical but impersonal.
• Blogs: The online equivalent to publications.
• Microblogs: Short, fast and frequent.
• Podcasts: Add depth but lose the element of interactivity.
• Social networks: Facilitate “listening” via reading others’ posts and comments.
• Social Bookmarking Sites: Drive awareness.
• Online Video: Flexible but complex.
• Search Engines: Drive traffic.
â–¶ Get specific when identifying your target audiences. “Embrace niche markets,” Gillin says. “They are knowledgeable, engaged, responsive and helpful, and they spend money.”
Of course, in order to effectively engage niche markets, you first have to identify ones that complement your brand and goals. Then, you have to determine where members of these niches congregate online—usually not a difficult thing to do, as these individuals are often very active on social networks and blogs pertaining to their niches.
â–¶ Make a commitment to be dedicated to social media marketing for the long haul. It may seem counterintuitive given the speed at which information travels online, but social media marketing campaigns are long-term commitments, not short-term campaigns.
“Ditch the 13-week campaign [timeframe],” Gillin says. “Social media marketing campaigns take time.”
He recommends the following timeline and goals:
• Weeks 1-13: Build awareness, show steady growth.
• Weeks 14-39: Gain search traction, generate inbound links.
• Weeks 40-52: Make top-10 results for targeted queries; have traffic be self-sustaining.
• Weeks 53+: Aim to have the daily number of visitors to be three-to-four times higher than week 14’s average, and consider campaign spin-offs.
| SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: STRATEGY CHECKLIST |
| â‘ Set goals |
| â‘ Listen |
| â‘ Find communities |
| â‘ Find influencers |
| â‘ Develop a content strategy |
| â‘ Pick tools |
| â‘ Deliver content |
| â‘ Engage |
| â‘ Facilitate |
| â‘ Measure |
| Source: Chris Abraham (president and COO, Abraham & Harrison) and Sally Falkow (principal and Web strategist, Expansion Plus) |
â–¶ Don’t come from a position of fear. The old FDR line, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” couldn’t be more true in the context of social media marketing. After all, it’s been said a thousand times, and it will be said a thousand time more: The fear of relinquishing control over your brand messages is not an excuse to avoid playing in the social media sandbox. Nor is it a reason to enter into online conversations tentatively, as this will do more harm than good.
“Don’t fear negativity,” Gillin says. “Just be human.”
Perhaps the statement that best sums up this mandate is one from Ben Popken, editor-in-chief of The Consumerist, who had a well-documented showdown with now-defunct Circuit City when the company unceremoniously pulled issues of MAD magazine from its stores because it contained a parody of the electronics brand.
When Consumerist.com got wind of it, they lambasted the company for being overly sensitive and acting so rashly. When Jim Babb of Circuit City’s corporate communications department caught on to the situation, he replied in-kind with a humorous letter of apology to Consumerist.com and MAD, which re-ingratiated the brand with readers and consumers alike, and inspired this comment from Popken:
“If a company does something wrong and then fixes it, it stirs up much more customer loyalty than if they didn’t do something wrong in the first place.” PRN
CONTACTS:
Paul Gillin, [email protected]; Chris Abraham, [email protected]; Sally Falkow, [email protected]; Francois Gossieaux, [email protected]