Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

Social media is ever-changing. There is not a set of standards or steps that guarantee success. If any venture is going to be successful, it is important to first research, analyze, and plan. This is not a sprint -- it's a marathon. Start at the beginning and pace yourself. Think about it, why do many marketing campaigns fail? Often it's because top-down pressure to show quick results leads to a rushed development timeframe, resulting in a poorly communicated message to an incorrectly targeted audience.

Like any successful communications initiative, the more voices joining in the message, the more successful the campaign. However, an effective social media campaign requires as much listening as it does telling. With most internal departments operating in silos, companies would be wise to execute a push/pull strategy when implementing social media, enabling certain departments to become active in the conversation.

While many see social media as a component of marketing or public relations, the opportunity to support the dialogue in other areas of the organization actually extends much further. Sales, human resources, and many other departments have direct external facing responsibilities, and with the right guidance, can help maintain the online conversation through social media. For this discussion, let's look at the impact to three of these departments: marketing, sales, and public relations.

Marketing
A fundamental strategy for marketing departments is to listen to customers and recognize and anticipate what they want or need. Social media provides new tools for marketers to listen to their customers and intelligently communicate with them. This leads to a greater need to maintain the conversation, and identify and develop intelligent communications that engender loyalty.

It is important to pull customers into the conversation, don't just sit back and push messages onto them. This helps build your brand, identify loyal customers, and target strong prospects. In addition, it allows your audience to take part in conversations with your company. Being transparent and responsive to customers will provide substance to your brand and build trust, keeping them engaged in the long-term conversation.

Sales
As the economy stabilizes and recovers, companies with strong brand and customer awareness will see the most benefit. Several reports from Forrester Research, Google, and Forbes, among others, have shown that B2B decision makers, especially in technology, turn to online channels to conduct research about future purchase decisions.

B2B decision-makers use social media as part of the procurement cycle. When a prospective customer becomes aware of your product or service, she may go online to research what others say about your brand, how they rate your product or service, or what additional information is available on your website or blog. B2B companies must determine how and when to plug into social media to best reach potential customers. Align your social media strategy with your sales cycle, and use social media tools to advance sales efforts through focused conversations.

Public Relations
Public relations campaign objectives frequently mirror those of social media -- it's all about building and maintaining relationships. Social media is essentially a two-way communications channel. Coupled with the changing role of news media, public relations is adapting to social media and the intimacy it affords. Social media provides new means for media to reach readers, as well as alternative channels to source information about vendors, products, services, etc. By aligning public relations with social media, companies can ensure a consistent message is delivered across multiple mediums and develop audience-specific campaigns that strengthen relationships.

Just as with customer relationships, companies must change the way they use public relations to interact with media and prospects. People don't just read news anymore; they throw in their own two cents and share information across their network. The media now have a vast and diverse audience to help extend and maintain your conversation. But, will they?

To develop and maintain successful communications requires commitment. Every customer-facing department in your company must monitor and engage social media tools as part of your company's overall brand strategy. Marketing, sales, and PR should collaborate to build social media strategies into an overall strategic communications plan. The plan should also include engagement guidelines for departments you normally do not consider as part of the communications effort. As an exercise, go to your finance department and ask how many have ever mentioned work on one of their social networks and you will quickly understand the importance of bringing everyone together. It is essential an organization's brand ambassadors comprehend the goal and the messages to become valuable contributors to the conversation.

Tools will continue to change -- social networking sites such as Twitter, which has exploded in popularity this year, will likely be overshadowed by newer, more interactive and advanced platforms. How you choose to engage is up to you, but you have to make sure you maintain the conversation. By ensuring all of your departments are coordinated and working toward the same goal, you will keep customers and prospects interested and engaged with your brand.

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About the Author: Steve McAbee is president of Wunderkind Public Relations. Follow Steve on Twitter at @wkprsteve.