Social Media In The Workplace
In 2010, if you’re not adopting social media practices into your business, you’re not part of the conversation. Expect to be bumped down Google rankings by RealSearch results anytime soon. If you’re ready to engage then planning begins here!
Proper planning and execution is the key to integrating social media into your online marketing strategies. Drafting a policy is no longer good enough — you need a plan to put your policy into place.
Key areas you must identify are :
Your Objective …
what do you want to achieve when using it? Your strategy has to include setting up internal appropriate practices, usage policies, content limits and the extent of outside degree of engagement.
As a business online, audience perception of your brand identity will now need to be seen to :
- be more responsive
- handle audience/consumer feedback more quickly and effectively
- appear more ‘human’ to the outside world, revealing personality behind your logo
- increase awareness of the strength of your product /services
- provide perspective/accurate information about your company
Content Management…
who takes charge of updating content and the update frequency? In house resources become stretched and too often, the best intentions soon fade because there is lack of time, ability or original ideas and content becomes no longer fresh or relevant to attract sustained traffic. SMEs in particular, might simply hand the ‘job’ to sales or marketing!
The best option is to outsource for certain aspects of the strategy :
- website analytics – for monitoring/measurement and identifying new opportunities
- online content – daily blogs, articles, news feeds, twitter feeds, facebook updating
Internally, a specific employee is typically assigned to take reponsibility for managing the company’s social media pages, deal with outsourcing agencies and immediately respond to messages and questions as they occur.
Tech Support …
look at the technology capabilities of your company and make sure the system can support the strategy. Before any social media applications are engaged, you need to resolve :
- who will have access to the sites
- firewalls that would prevent access
- rules about time spent and posted content
Remember – the basic etiquette and/or rules of social media are transparency, openness, authenticity, and avoiding defunct ‘selling’ marketing.
Social media means maximising your exposure and business opportunities by matching your target customers, identifying network gaps, and focusing on making connections with persons in niche companies, industries and geographic regions, joining online groups and network industry forums.