Something I don’t hear many people talking about is how branding, goals, and measurement are going to affect how you craft and execute your social media marketing strategy. Let’s take a simple example of the airline industry. I’m sure you can think of many different ways that airlines can use social media: purchase tickets, check flight info, etc. But, can you think of how Southwest might use social media differently than let’s say Virgin America? Sure both airlines can get involved in social media but the key is to understand how their brands will affect their social media engagement. Southwest airlines is a great airline, I fly with them all the time; they are branded as a more cost effective/budget/quirky airline. Virgin America, another airline I fly on, is branded as a more hip/cool/trendy airline. Both of these airlines can offer things such as seat check and ticket purchasing through social media platforms such as twitter, but that’s just basic “industry” stuff. There needs to be a differentiation, your brand and your overall message should heavily influence how you use social media.
What about goals and measurement? Let’s take one airline as an example this time, I’ll choose Southwest. Now if Southwest wants to increase traffic to their site what sort of social media strategy should they go after? What if they want to increase sales? What if they just want to offer a higher level of customer service support? You can see how companies are using social media differently by just looking at twitter.
Increase traffic
This is something I use social media for (among other things). When I write posts I share them with my twitter community, facebook friends, etc. I do this not only to build traffic but to establish authority, trust, and community with all of you. The conversations and interactions provide me with a lot of value (and hopefully they provide you with a lot value as well).
Increase sales
Check out what Dell is doing through twitter, the latest numbers show that they have already generated over $1,000,000 in sales through their factory outlet twitter account. Dell uses this twitter account to instantly inform over 18,000 people about the latest Dell discounts and deals, and yes, it works.
Customer Service
Want to see a kick ass example of a company using twitter? Just check out what Comcast is doing. I wrote a post about my experience with Comcast recently. Comcast has several people on twitter (and across social media) who monitor and engage in both positive and negative conversations. They diagnose problems online, set-up tech appointments, and offer fantastic customer service support instantly.
In each of the three examples above you can clearly see how social media (beneficially twitter) is used differently to accomplish various tasks. In each of the three examples you can also see that the measurements to determine success are also going to be quite different. Comcast isn’t going to use sales as a metric to determine how effective their customer service support is (might be considered but not a main metric) and Dell isn’t going to use traffic or sentiment to determine how effective their sales channel is.
Before you start a social media campaign you have to consider your branding and your message, it needs to be consistent and it needs to “fit” the company. Once you have that down you need make sure you establish a clear set of goals and measurements that you are going to use to track your social media success. When these things are all in place then you can begin to explore HOW you are going to use social media.
What’s your take?
Great Post Jacob. These are many of the examples I bring up everyday when speaking with current and prospective clients. It's all about goal setting when you engage in social media. The take away from each of these companies that any one looking to dive into social media is that each of them treat their clients like a person and are human. This is a early lesson that Connie Bensen (http://conniebensen.com/) taught me early in my first experience with Twitter. Be HUMAN and not the marketing machine.
Excellent point. I agree that it's very important that we our identify our brand and goals very early in the game. That was not all that obvious to me at first, because there are so many bad examples of how ppl use Twitter.
Your examples are great and get us to thinking of the possibilities. When I hear the creative ways Dell and Comcast have used Twitter, it gets my mind going on how I might apply it to my situation. It's all about relationships: adding value for people.
Thanks for the post.
Wilma Woodson
Hi Jacob,
That is one heck of a statistic regarding what Dell is doing through Twitter. I only wish i had 5% success with what Dell is doing. I know social media is powerful, I just have not been using to my advantage just yet. Great posts, Jacob…I find your blog very helpful.
howdy jim,
connie is a wise one indeed!
hi wima
thanks for stopping by. branding is definitely important. social media shouldn't be looked at like an addition to marketing, it should be interwoven in marketing.
thanks for the comment!
hey daniel,
yep dell has been rocking twitter, i lost count of how many accounts they have on there now, but it's a lot. same goes for comcast.
thanks for the kind words, glad you enjoy the site!
Social media has been an integral part of our business and we can contribute much of our success to the use of it. Companies like Dell are fortunate in the fact that they already have such a broad audience, which allows them to reach 18k plus people in a single tweet, which just isn't realistic for a small start-up.
I think that it is important to point out that people need to seek realistic results as they will not likely see the same response that say Dell will. Now with that being said, you can still market yourself, your products or whatever as you continue to grow your network. In reality, marketing through twitter is no different than what many email marketers have been doing for years, the only difference is building your list is much easier on Twitter.
Great article though, I really enjoyed it!
Chris
http://realestatelicensedirect.com
Thanks! Timing could not have been better. I'm giving a social media introduction at an association meeting this week, and your posts are extremely helpful.
hey thanks bob! glad you found the information useful, feel free to use any of it in your introduction, all i ever ask for is the reference/link
hi chris, you do make a good point there. managing expectations is crucial for success. you can't promise someone the moon and then not deliver, even if the campaign is still a success, it will not be seen as such. glad you enjoyed the post, hope to hear more from you!
hey thanks bob! glad you found the information useful, feel free to use any of it in your introduction, all i ever ask for is the reference/link
hi chris, you do make a good point there. managing expectations is crucial for success. you can't promise someone the moon and then not deliver, even if the campaign is still a success, it will not be seen as such. glad you enjoyed the post, hope to hear more from you!