Organizing a Social Marketing Team

In the white paper, The 7 Whiteboard Sessions Every Social Strategist Needs to Have, the ideas of what it actually takes to run a social media campaign and the areas of largest opportunity are explored.  The article outlines, in detail, seven areas that require key attention and ways to execute effectively in those areas.  This will be the first of a series of posts from the white paper.

The first area of concern is to learn more about the consumers of your social media.  Following organic conversations about your content or brand, and supporting those who support you is obviously important.  But then having ways to asses these conversations, either through use of text analysis (discussed here) or just by keeping tabs on quantity and quality of conversations.  Further, keeping tabs on hot topics around your brand and tracking users who advocate on your behalf is crucial.  Having ways to support these individuals and understand more about them could be crucial to a social media campaign.

Noting what content is inspiring conversation or activity is a must.  Understanding what incentives your consumers will respond to should encourage more similar posts to create more creativity and inspire more activity and awareness the media and brand.  This should include content and activity not limited to your own content.  If your followers share other characteristics, supporting those can build a better relationship with these consumers.  For instance a brand like Nike can gain by posting material about kids doing incredible things outdoors, or from athletic feats, regardless of their relationship to Nike.  Additionally, keeping records and notes of conversations between the brand and specific individuals can help provide context for future interactions and set a standard for response that can be used when dealing with future consumers.

From the process of gathering information on the consumers of a brand, one will also find a handful of individuals who advocate on the part of the brand.  Sharing its content, responding to antagonistic comments, and retweeting tweets.  For larger scale operations this could individuals making videos about the brand and its products, or even dedicating entire blogs to the brand.  When considering who to support for their loyalty to the brand keeping in mind those individual's characteristics is also important.  Seeing how many people their videos or blog posts are reaching, or how many friends they have and how much activity their posts see, ect. all are valid concerns in exposing those individuals over others.  Promoting these individuals and others like them will help promote positive social activity and enhance the effects of the media posted.

Once these questions are understood and objectives made to solidify a base relationship with the followers, other objectives can be achieved.  However, failure to gain information about those who follow a brand will undermine any other projects that will be pursued.  Localized posts will reach the wrong people, company wide policy will be structured around the wrong mentalities, and exceptional content, designed for one audience, will be lost on the other.  But done right, other tactics successes will compound upon a well established relationship with the consumer based on respect, professionalism, and understanding.   

The article is accessible here.