31 Aug Social Media Isn’t Scary (Part Two)
Last week I started to tell you about a recent article that I read called “Starting in Social Media? The 5 Ps of A Perfect Program” by Taryn Erickson. Why am I sharing this information? There’s a lot of talk about social media, but there’s also a lot of confusion as to how to get started. Mortgage professionals view social media as something that they should do, but many don’t know where to start or what to do. I’m here to tell you that it’s not hard, but you do have to act. Here are some more tips, and there’s one of my own, as well:
PEOPLE: Internal and External Audiences
Once you have a strategy and Social Media functionality figured out, what is next? Engaging your audiences. And yes, this includes both external and internal. What’s in it for your audience? How can you add value?.
- Who dictates your content (internal audience)?
- Who posts content, how many voices?
- Give incentives for posting good content
- Have a watchdog that monitors content
- Utilize training forums so your content is well thought out
- Who is your external audience?
- Grow your external audience
- Retain your external audience
- Interaction with People vs. Companies
- Small company can have a much bigger voice!
PERFORMANCE: Return On Investment?
Monitoring and measuring ROI for your Social Media efforts can seem daunting. Frankly, sometimes it is hard to quantify. The biggest key is to ensure you are measuring against the goals of your Social Media campaign. If you are looking to brand your business or recruit great talent, your metrics may be different.
- Utilize analytics already built into the platforms
- Use measurement tools available online
- (google analytics, ominiture, postrank, sentiment metrics)
- Monitoring vs. Measurement, there is a difference
- Report, report, report
- Track and improve your SEO
- Integrate your Social Media ROI with other business metrics
- Tracking the intangible parts of ROI (feedback)
- What are YOU learning in social media space?!
Now here’s one P of my own:
PROCEED: Get Started
- It doesn’t matter if you have a great plan, position, people and a way to track performance if you don’t get started
- Don’t be intimidated. Social media is very do-able if you have a plan of action
- But don’t forget to plan. You need to proceed to execute a program
- From there you need to engage and monitor what is or is not working
- ROI is clear, but it does take effort. Social media will work for you if you make it a priority.
- The big takeaway and key here is that you must start now
So is there really a “Perfect Program” in Social Media? It depends. What are your goals versus your successes? How much are you learning? Do your customers and colleagues engage with you in a new way? Then perhaps you are finding your Social Media Success. So, get started today.