A friend of mine recently lamented the amount of time that he spends Tweeting. For him there is a sense that he had become strangely enslaved to the harmless blue bird.
I endeavoured to find out whether he had started out with a plan but I couldn’t seem to get a straight answer. That tells me something in itself.
The conversation got me wondering how many other companies and brands have embraced web 2.0 in the hope that it would help their brand and somehow make life easier – only to find themselves chained to the wheel. Make no mistake – I’m a big wrap for social media. In its many forms it stands a good chance of restoring some humanity to the communications process and offers a list of benefits that is too long to list in this particular post. But once engaged it can be an extremely needy companion.
Of course, it used to be the same for websites, micro-sites and relationship-based email campaigns back in the web 1.0 days but the nature of the customer relationship has changed. Don’t be deceived by the air of friendly informality – the expectations placed upon brands that wade into the social media waters have increased considerably.
With due credit to Jaws 4, this time it’s personal.
Don’t forget that the whole web 2.0 thing has come about in part because people are looking for more than what they got under web 1.0 – more immediate information, more participation and ownership, and more responsiveness. These expectations are implicit in a readers agreement to be a fan, follower, and/or subscriber.
The personal relationship is initiated which is underpinned by two basic tenets:
- You have undertaken to provide an ongoing service, and
- You will provide a generally consistent service in terms of frequency, currency, depth and responsiveness.
Now before you close this email and bin your request to have WordPress loaded onto the corporate server – hold on! I am not saying don’t do it – I’m just saying that is important to have an understanding of the expectations that underpin social media before you set sail, work out if and how you can maintain the relationship and then formulate a plan.
In terms of formulating a plan, here are a few things (from a hundred possible points) to consider before embarking upon your chosen social media journey:
- Clarity of Purpose
- Define the content proposition
- Express the content proposition
- Be genuine but not overly familiar
- Find your voice
- Map your channels
- Work out how you will deal with comments
Do I have a clear purpose for your socal media activity (blog, FB, TW,etc)? Do you know what value it is intended to deliver to your readers? What will it deliver to company or brand?
A word of warning…if you are working for a large company or old-world brand, be sure to clearly articulate and document the benefits to the company internally and seek senior (ideally written) buy-in. Get agreement also that the brand can be personalised and that this is your role. Otherwise you may find your voyage cut short or plunged into content hell where your blogs are delayed and sterilised by risk-averse company policies that belong to the 1980’s.
Define the tone, style and theme of the information that you are planning to deliver. What can recipients expect to receive and why will it be of value?
wherever you can so that potential subscribers understand
The genuine aspect of this is a resounding theme of advice from problogger.net. The familiarity point is mine and will undoubtedly draw comment. My view is that as in conventional relationships, closeness is earned rather than assumed. As such, just because I like what you say in your blog doesn’t mean that I want you or your brand to assume a level of fraternity that I reserve for close friends. I’m not advocating frozen corporate speak – just a comfortable level of respect.
I personally find this incredibly difficult and I know from personal experience that it can sometimes create great angst at post time. For what its worth my clients have had some success from setting a question that is relevant to the topic and then answering the question in a fictional email to a trusted colleague. This seems to provide a “reader” and ensures that the tone remains warm and human yet respectful.
If you are planning to use more than one social media channel work out which is the destination point. This is typically a blog or similarly content-rich area. Please don’t use a dynamic channel like Twitter to send users to a static home page and then leave them to navigate to the tweeted information for themselves – they won’t. This may sound obvious but this is exactly what happened to me twice in the last week.
This is especially important if you are the voice of a brand – and more so if the brand has a heritage of non-response. This is the sort of thing that can catch you off guard and is best contemplated before the fact. Remember that collaboration and comments are an integral part of the landscape.
A bit of pre-planning can save considerable pain down the track. If along the way you encounter material resistance from inside your company think seriously about whether the time is right to engage customers in a social media environment.
Whilst we all know that the day will have to come, some company cultures are simply not ready to open the door and will not thank you for doing so pre-emptively.
in senior marketing, online media and digital brand management roles. Passionate about the customer experience and cautious of false prophets, I help create genuine long term value within the digital & social media landscape. 
