{"id":900,"date":"2010-07-10T01:31:36","date_gmt":"2010-07-10T01:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=900"},"modified":"2010-07-10T03:11:28","modified_gmt":"2010-07-10T03:11:28","slug":"5-steps-to-add-social-media-to-your-marketing-mix-it%e2%80%99s-never-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/5-steps-to-add-social-media-to-your-marketing-mix-it%e2%80%99s-never-too-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Steps to Add Social Media to Your Marketing Mix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social media participation is a marketing game changer for every size of business. The playing field is leveled and companies from @Ford<\/a> with 198,000 employees, to @AmeriChoiceFCU<\/a> with 60 employees, to @GoodHlthRewards<\/a> with 7 employees have equal opportunity to tell their story, attract an audience, listen to the customer, and make the sale. <\/p>\n

Perhaps you think blogging, tweeting, and checking-in is a fad. Who cares if @AlanBr82<\/a> had coffee at Starbuck in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania? @Starbucks<\/a> cares and commercial real estate developers like @RichardEJordan2<\/a> care. <\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media brings new tools to our preliminary market studies,\u201d says Rick Jordan, CEO of Smith Land & Improvement Corporation<\/a>. \u201cIn real time, we can learn consumer trends and desires. Twitter is one massive focus group. As a property owner who leases office and retail space, it\u2019s good to know that our tenants have a loyal following and are building community. By tracking conversations, we can discover what products and services people want in a region and attract specific tenants to fill the needs. That\u2019s good for business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chances are high that your competition is already engaged on LinkedIn<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, Flickr<\/a>, and Foursquare<\/a>. To find out, go to www.socialmention.com<\/a>, www.trackle.com<\/a>, or set up some Google Alerts<\/a>. If you\u2019re not on at least one of these social platforms, you can join the conversation today to add social media to your marketing mix. It\u2019s never too late to tell your story.<\/p>\n

Where should you start?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\tMeet with the CEO to establish executive buy-in. Top-down support drives a social media marketing campaign. Peter Aceto (@CEO_INGDIRECT<\/a>) is an excellent example of an executive who harnesses the power of social media for a business advantage. He tweets about his institution, his team, his family; and he has gained loyal customers and fresh insight because of his transparency. Ford\u2019s Global Digital Communications Director @ScottMonty<\/a> explains the power of these tools and the CEO\u2019s support in a video interview<\/a> at Ford\u2019s World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Whether an executive understands these nascent tools or not, dismissing them can be business suicide.<\/p>\n


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\n2.<\/strong>\tDevelop a social media strategy. Don\u2019t make this step too difficult\u2014plan for where you want to engage your target audience (are they on Facebook or LinkedIn, are they local or global, are they retail or B2B), and plan the content of your messages. Focus your strategy, and commit to participation in at least two channels where your customers or clients are. Determine objectives, messages, and who will lead the messaging. Every tweet and post embodies your brand. Don\u2019t be fooled by the language and brevity in the social media. Those 140 characters carry tremendous potential to boost your brand<\/a> or set off a PR nightmare<\/a>. Are you determining trends, seeking opinions, looking for new customers, finding influencers, or pitching the media? Start with measurable objectives and allocate sufficient people, time, and money to accomplish them. (This is where the value of #1 is realized.)<\/p>\n


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\n3.<\/strong>\tChoose two platforms to engage in. While you are \u201cdoing\u201d business\u2014producing, servicing, selling\u2014smart companies are listening to conversations about their competition and searching the public timeline for opportunities to create their own Blue Ocean Strategy<\/a>. Engaging on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and reading blog posts from consumers in your industry provides enough data to develop a competitive landscape. What\u2019s your competition doing? Who are their customers? Is there a need being unfulfilled? Is there a weakness? Is there a service delivered unsatisfactorily, hence an opportunity? You\u2019ll find your answers 24\/7 in social media channels.<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong>\tChoose what topics to follow. On Twitter.com<\/a>, use the Search function to find people talking about your products or to discover wholesale conversations on your topic\u2014energy, analytics, IT, commercial real estate, non-profits. When you begin to build a Facebook page, invite customer feedback and build a reputation for responsiveness. When Ann Taylor Loft (@Loft<\/a>) posted Facebook pictures of models wearing their new line of pants, a few customers commented that it would be nice to see pictures of the employees wearing their new styles. The Loft engaged immediately (proving that real people are listening and responding to consumers) and posted photos of their own team sporting the fashions<\/a>. <\/p>\n


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On Tweetdeck<\/a>, you can organize your columns by topics or people, and listen to real-time, continuous conversations. Brands we follow are @Nordstrom<\/a>, @Wegmans<\/a>, @Ford<\/a>, @Loft<\/a>, @JetBlue<\/a>, @Gevalia<\/a>, and @InteractiveJag<\/a>. We listen to streaming topics which are connoted by a hashtag\u2014anyone talking about #IABC, #marketing, #PR, #cre (commercial real estate) #sustainability, and #energy is noteworthy to us. It won\u2019t take long to find the influencers in any conversation.<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong>\tChoose who to listen to within a topic. Follow the people with the best content and valuable connections. Find the industry experts and leaders by evaluating their tweets and reading their posts and comments. We listen to PR\/marketing colleagues @SocialNetDaily<\/a>, @HowellMarketing<\/a>, @PRMoxie<\/a>, @Michael_MBA<\/a>, @Barb_G<\/a>, @LynnDesantis<\/a>, @RoyJWells<\/a>, @marketingbyDM<\/a>, @2morrowknight<\/a>, @AllanSchoenberg<\/a>, @EricFletcher<\/a>, @TreyPennington<\/a>, @DebWeinstein<\/a>, @TheSocialCMO<\/a>, and @manuchat<\/a> around the world and learn from them. We read their case studies and comment on their blogs. Who are the influencers in your field? Glen Gilmore (@TrendTracker<\/a>) has developed such a strong knowledge-flow and group of followers that he is a media channel himself. The quality of information delivered in his tweets attracts more than 75,500 followers who quite often check his Twitterstream first to see what\u2019s happening in the world.<\/p>\n

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By adding social media to your traditional marketing mix, you can redouble your marketing efforts, increase your SEO (check that out on Website Grader<\/a>), build your reputation, tell your story, and deliver Return on Information\u2014that\u2019s good news for the CFO, your clients, and for business.<\/p>\n

Anne D. Gallaher<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social media participation is a marketing game changer for every size of business. The playing field is leveled and companies from @Ford with 198,000 employees, to @AmeriChoiceFCU with 60 employees, to @GoodHlthRewards with 7 employees have equal opportunity to tell their story, attract an audience, listen to the customer, and make the sale. Perhaps you … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,60],"tags":[526,527,528,108,525,153],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-annedgallaher","tag-blogging","tag-checking-in","tag-competition","tag-conversations","tag-participation","tag-tweeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":933,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions\/933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}