More Good Advice from Lisa Barone About Creating an Effective Social Media Program for Your OrganizationIn her savvy "9 Things to do Before Entering Social Media" piece in Small Business Trends on Tuesday, Lisa listed a number of things that some organizations who just plunged in are now learning the hard way, smacking their heads with a Homer Simpson "D'Oh!" Here are some I thought particularly insightful if you don't go read the full article.
Create a rulebook:
Identify how you’ll handle common support issues, the tone you’ll take, how you’ll address negativity, how fans will be rewarded, etc. Work up fake scenarios and create a plan for how you’ll deal with them.
Assign responsibility:
• Who will be responsible for creating the content, pushing it, talking to people, responding to questions, etc?
• Who will implement any changes/issues discovered through social media?
• How much time should this be taking from everyone’s day and is the number you just came up with realistic or did you just make it up?
Increase your customer support:
Now that you’re going to have a live stream of people coming to you with questions, concerns you can’t ignore them. That may mean rearranging your customer support system or, it may mean adding actual bodies.
Shift your culture:
You need to be social from inside your organization out and that that may change how you deal with customers, how you treat your employees, and how daily job functions are performed.
Commit to responding:
Commit yourself and your organization to responding to complaints (addressing them is how you can provide the biggest value to your company). Be ready to act. When people complain or point out things that need to be fixed you actually have to act on them.
Clue in your employees:
Your employees are the strongest brand advocates you have. They want to get involved so make sure you clue employees to your new social strategy, let them know their role and tell them how they can help the organization. Give them the power and the knowledge to do that.
1 comments:
Ha! If we lived by rules like this (1) no one would get married (2) no babies would be born and (3) most small businesses would fizzle at the dream stage. This isn't bad advice but if it keeps you even two weeks from getting started with social media, then ignore it and just get in there and do it -- you learn by doing! and by making a few mistakes.
Don't wait so long (e.g. shifting your culture? for real?) that you lose out on opportunities. There are so many people who will help you succeed (ahem! :) Grab your brand names, stake your claims, pay attention to design and engage!
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