Social media have been around for many years while for some time now businesses have been getting on board with many planning on doing so. However to ensure succes as well as avoid what could be damaging results there are some key considerations that should be thought about and planned. Here is a shortlist of some of these.
Strategy; some thought needs to be out into what the purpose of a businesses reasons for engaging with social media is.
Policy; alongside a strategy, before engaging with social media you need some sort of policy. This would include guidelines about what your people can say and can't say, what they can do and what happens of they leave your business.
Team; some people love social media some people don't, some enjoy writing, creating and expressing opinions and engaging with others, some don't. If a business is to engage with social media it needs to be decided who is going to do so. Your team may be just one person. That’s fine but most of the points made here still apply.
Good content; whether writing and maintaining a blog, putting content on your site and then telling people about it, creating videos, podcats, images or posting into social media sites you need something to engage your audience with.
Profiles; a decision needs to be made about profiles. These are the identities that will be engaging with social media. It may be that there is only one being that of the organisation itself or like many organisations it may be on a divisional or departmental basis. Or it may be that individuals within the organisation will develop their own identities. This will be covered in your policy and strategy but is another area that needs to be considered.
Sites and landscape; there are dozens of social media sites and more being launched all the time. The landscape changes regularly and the social media and networking sites change within this landscape. Following on from your strategy decisions need to be made as to which sites you're going to work with. There are some sites such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn which most companies would include in their list but there are many other possible sites that can be used.
Resources; as welll as a team there are other resources that need to be considered. These are the ability and resources required for making videos or podcasts and taking pictures. Again your strategy will determine whether this is something that is thought to be valuable or not but more and more businesses are setting up YouTube channels and so needing the resources required to make a video.
Measurement; for a business it's worthwhile considering how you plan to measure what affect social media is having on your business. This can be done in multiple ways. There are websites as well as free or paid software that can help you do this. You can also use your own systems to help you. Often the benefits from engaging with social media are difficult to measure but it is worth considering how you might do this and then implementing the best methods you can.
Time; working with social media takes time and for any business time is money and ultimately should be justified through some sort of return. Your strategy planning should include details of the amount of time that the business is prepared to spend in working and engaging with social media. It's worth thinking about frequency of engagement as well and of course planning what might be expected from this investment of time.
And of course..
Patience; vital if you're not going to get frustrated with social media. building a positive profile in social media takes time and patience and it is not a quick win medium. Even with all of the above in place, you should look at the time you spend working with it in the mid to long term. There are many examples of the huge benefits from working with social media properly and respecting your target audiences.
