Saturday, 28 December 2013

2 necessary ingredients of social media strategy

With 2013 coming to an end, all the world memorising about the year and planning the coming year, social media being the emerging industry and also being widely spoken a lot about everywhere, I being a social media marketer wanted to put down few things I believe about social media.

Among various questions, discussions I happened to be a part of in 2013 in social media is about strategy. I observed most of the marketers, businesses are overwhelmed with too many tools, social networks and drastically changing behaviours of the social networks and people. As a result most of the strategies are missing two points.

One thing we should do before building a social media strategy is to 'Listen'
One thing a social media strategy shouldn't miss is 'Bravery'

Listen:

Stay focused, Just be plain and listen to the social conversations happening around your industry, competitors, and your brand. Symbol # is ruling the networks. Its everywhere. Understand its importance and analyse how people are using it. If you can carefully listen and analyse you can make out
1. Where your target audience are
2. What people are expecting.
3. What and how your competitors are doing in social media.
4. What are the gaps your industry is facing in reaching the people.
5. Learn how to communicate in social media.

Wouldn't this analysis be enough to start of with the basic strategy to move into social media? Wouldn't this be enough to decide on which networks to participate and which tools to use? Certainly they do.
Relax. Paper and pen always works. Note down your findings, analysis, conclusions and trust me you will love your strategy and gain thousand watts of confidence to move forward.

Bravery:

From years we have seen the term bravery as an act or quality one have to face danger or pain without fear. But, when I say bravery it is courage to take a step without fear, courage to experiment, courage to be open, honest and transparent.Courage to apologise, courage to forgive, courage to respond immediately, courage to converse openly. Social networks rewards you when you show this quality.

Biggest fear I hear from business is, social media is open to public and what if something goes wrong?
Remember, mistakes can always be rectified.

“I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.” 
―Terry Goodkind.

This quote says it all. Don't hesitate to trust yourself and move forward. If you still not confident enough to move forward, don't move. Believe in your instincts.

Happy Socializing!
"Every good conversation starts with good LISTENING".

1 comment:

  1. Simple yet powerful tools, Would also like to hear more ingredients from this blog !

    ReplyDelete