Digital Media Buzz > Is Your Company Faceless? 10 Steps to Integrate Social Media and Get Recognized

Is Your Company Faceless? 10 Steps to Integrate Social Media and Get Recognized

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By Niki Hammond

What are the differences between companies that do social media well and companies that don’t? Objectives, engagement and authenticity. Here are 10 steps to making social media an integral part of your business strategy without getting lost in a misunderstood medium.

1. Determine your goals.
As a business, the first mistake you can make in the world of social media is to jump into it without any particular goals in mind. Have a plan. Some typical outcomes you may strive for:

• Business Development/New Sales — Creating a place for customers, potential customers and anyone with enthusiasm for your product or industry to come together is an excellent way to grow your customer base. Take for example Wine Library. After creating a website and posting videos that answered people’s common questions about wine, owner Gary Vaynerchuk became a trusted source of information and took his humble wine shop to the top. WineLibrary.com now does $48 million a year in sales as the world’s biggest online wine store.
• Brand Awareness/Image Development — According to the Nielsen Global Trust In Advertising Survey, 90 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, and only 33 percent trust ads. Encouraging your fans to share their enthusiasm for your product is worth more than any ad campaign.
• Market Testing — Social media is a quick and convenient way to collect feedback on new ideas before making major investments. If you monitor what people are saying and engage your customers, they will guide you in making improvements to your products that are valuable to them.
• Improved Customer Service – Before the days of YouTube and Facebook, dissatisfied customers might complain to their friends and family, spreading ill-will to a few dozen people at most. Today, a rant on a blog or a video post can reach tens of thousands of customers and would-be customers. The good news is, if you are engaged in the conversation, you have an opportunity to correct mistakes and improve poor service in a way that can turn foes into fans.

Whatever your goals, keep in mind that leveraging social media as a part of your overall strategy shouldn’t come as a replacement to what you’re doing through existing channels, but as a complement.

2. Define success.
How will you know whether your efforts are paying off, and how will you measure it? Employ Web stats, sales tracking, customer satisfaction surveys and any other appropriate tools to help gauge how close you are to meeting your goals.

3. Research to determine the appropriate tactics and venues for your efforts.
If you want to engage your audience with custom applications, Facebook is the main player. To keep people apprised of major announcements or interesting developments, Twitter, FriendFeed and blogging might be best. Do you want consumers to create their own content? Try YouTube or Vimeo. LinkedIn is great for professional networking, and so on. Don’t waste energy with outlets that don’t fit into your broader strategy. As a general rule, you should go where the people are. Efforts are probably best spent on the more dominant networks that have a better chance at being around for a while. Smaller, niche networks may work for you if you’re a small, niche company and you find that a significant portion of your customer base is there.

4. Develop or refine your brand’s personality.
In his book Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity, Rohit Bhargava writes, “…most companies are adept at removing any sense of individuality or human connection from how they communicate. We commonly describe these companies as faceless.” People like to interact with people; not faceless corporations. Whether intentional or not, your company is probably already perceived as having certain personality traits; some good, some bad. Commit to a consistent tone of voice that personifies the good and minimizes the bad. However, you must also be authentic. A large, conservative financial institution is unlikely to be taken seriously if it’s represented as young and carefree, just as a high-fashion boutique catering to young adults will be less appealing if it looks like the content was written by an accountant. Most importantly, listen and respond to your audience. The point of social media is to engage in a two-way conversation.

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