…According to the 2010 Social Media Marketing Report, 67% of marketers plan to increase their use of social media channels including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

As more companies integrate social media into their marketing and communications plans, emphasis needs to be on creating a social media strategy.

So how exactly do you develop this strategy?

The Prerequisite

Before you develop your strategy, make sure your upper-management team believes in social media and that the first goal is not to sell, sell, sell.  In other words, if your business is jumping into social media because “everyone else is doing it” or because you want to sell product rather than to build relationships, please step away from social media.  Social media is a long-term commitment and not a marketing gimmick.

It’s important for the organization to understand that testing and experimentation are keys to success.  This comes naturally to an organization whose culture embraces being proactive and open.  The reason why all businesses need to have a social media strategy is because it prevents any misunderstandings and emphasizes why social media is relevant to your business’ overall goals.

Here are some key points to consider…

#1: Determine Your Goals and Objectives

Determine who owns social media.  Whether it’s marketing, PR, or communications is irrelevant.  In a perfect social media world for businesses, social media instills a collaborative approach and breaks down silos. What’s important is to understand your social media goals and objectives and how they tie into your overall company goals.

Keep it Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and Timely (aka be SMART!).

#2: Research, Research, and Research Some More

Rather than jumping into social media, prepare yourself so you know what to expect.

• Develop a list of social media sites where you can potentially engage with your target audience.  The list will most likely start off with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and a few select blogs and forums.
• Check out each of the social media sites on your list and do additional research to determine relevancy by searching for your brand name, your competitors, and your target keywords.  Listen to what’s out there, identify, and understand your target audience.

#3: Create a Digital Rolodex of Contacts and Content

When social media is done correctly, relationships will build naturally.  Begin making connections by following the conversation.  You can do this by subscribing to blogs in your industry and by making a list of influencers who are relevant to your business.

This becomes handy when it’s time to provide content on your social networks.  Read Emily Proctor’s article in which she provides some excellent pointers on a social media content strategy

#4: Join the Conversation to Develop Relationships

You can start joining the conversation by posting comments on blogs and forums, answering questions on Yahoo! and LinkedIn, joining groups related to your industry and joining Twitter chats.

Begin developing relationships by following and friending influencers and those in your industry.  Don’t just look for people with thousands of followers; you’ll be surprised by the value that someone with only a couple of hundred followers provides.  Look at measuring twitterers influence on (surprise, surprise – twinfluence.com)

#5: Strengthen Relationships

It’s easy to hide behind your avatar or profile picture, but face-to-face is incredibly powerful.  I think more people are now realising how underrated the in-person interaction really is because of how far social media has come, allowing so many people to “hide.”

Attend offline events related to your industry—not only to strengthen your knowledge base but also to network and strengthen relationships with those you might have conversed with via social media but never met in person.  A popular offline event is known as a tweetup.

#6: Measure Results

Goals and objectives of your social media strategy.

• Improve brand presence across social channels—The measurement goal here is an increase in the number of followers on Twitter, number of fans on Facebook, number of comments, number of times your brand is mentioned in blogs and forums and so on.
• Increase positive sentiment about your brand—The goal here is to convert the number of positive mentions while taking note of negative mentions.  Has the ratio of positive to negative comments improved?  With the good comes the bad in social media. Get used to it! The positive is great, but the negative is better! (Read A Complaint as a Gift – Jannelle Barlow)
• Develop relationships for future partnership opportunities—This goal is to keep track of those with whom you’ve connected.  For example, if you met a potential speaker for your webinar, include that person into your digital Rolodex. LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for it! If a vendor contacts you through your blog, capture that lead and take note.
• Increase traffic to your website—Keep track of visitors to your website who come from each of your social media sites.  If you’re promoting an event using social media, consider using a unique code to track the campaign.
  Use GoogleAnalytics extensively! It’s free, and very comprehensive!

Measuring social media is a never-ending debate.  What metrics do you use to measure social media?  What objective are you measuring those metrics for?

When it comes to measuring social media, it takes a multitude of metrics as well as trending reports to get a sense of what to improve.

#7: Analyze, Adapt, and Improve

Your social media strategy doesn’t end with measurement; it goes beyond that.  You need to analyze your social media campaigns, adapt any new findings into your current processes, and improve your efforts.

Testing and experimentation will perfect your social media efforts.

As you dive deeper into the never-ending pool of social media, you’ll quickly understand what works and what doesn’t.

More specifically, you’ll develop favorite tools to use, realize that there are certain days and times where it doesn’t pay to be active in social media, and come to the conclusion that you still have lots to learn.  It’s a wonderful new world and I hope many of you are as thrilled to be part of it as I am.

Conclusion

Social media strategies will vary for each business and for each industry.  However, one thing is clear: social media needs to have “all hands on deck” in order to be successfully integrated into your company’s goals and objectives.

I consider the social media platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as tactics that tie into the social media strategy, which is a part of your overall PR, Comms and Marketing strategies.  In other words, outline your social media strategy and support your strategy with tactics.  Without a carefully thought-out plan, you’ll eventually be overwhelmed with social media and even worse, get burnt out by it.  Use this guide as a stepping-stone to your social media success.

Does your company have a Social Media Strategy? How do you implement it? What did you learn from that process?

Posted by Raz Chorev

Social media monitoring is a biggie..full stop! By monitoring what people are saying about your brand you can gain an outstanding insight into how it is perceived. With this valuable information, it enables the brand to see what’s working and what’s not, it also gives them a huge influence over others in engaging and interacting real time with their audience/community – thanking people when thanking is due and cleaning up the spilt milk, changing the bad to good.

We are luuurving what Gatorade are up to! A big brand that are all over the monitoring process and reaping the rewards in a huge way!!! It’s a triple edged sword, not only are they setting the benchmark yet they are keeping the brand fresh, assisting to it’s voice and also pumping cool campaigns out like this (see video below) which enables influencers, like us bloggers, to assist them with the marketing and awareness! (bloggers are a truly powerful source in assisting a brand to build up  credibility and trust).

Check this out guys – Gatorade’s Social Media Mission Control! A power mix of IBM and Radian6 it’s monitoring everything said about the brand, right here, right now!! Love it!!

So, are they setting the stage for digital leadership or have you seen another brand nailing this space (monitoring aspect) ?

via ( Digital Buzz Blog)

Off the back of our recent post on Foursquare, we know that there are some that love it and some that hate it.

In very recent news, the powerhouse brand PepsiCo announced it is launching a location-based social networking campaign with Foursquare including its very own geo-targeting mobile application – Pepsi Loot.  It is really simple – Restaurants that sell Pepsi are pointed easily found and when customers drop in to pick up a drink, Pepsi will reward them with great incentives such as free music downloads and other things.

When we first heard about Foursquare, this type of application is exactly where my mind went straight away. Part of the reason we persisted with it so early on.

In the context of SMS adverting, In a September 2009, Mobile Commerce report, the AIMIA found that 39% were willing to receive advertising direct to their mobile phone for little incentives and prizes (Australian Stats).

It also has to be said that campaigns such as these are still in the experimental stage and reach is yet to be fully realised.  You may have noticed your local café has a special that you can unlock for a free beverage or the like. Our own clients Caroline Services Apartments recently caused a flutter of activity on their Brighton premises with accommodation give away for Foursquare Day.

So what are other ways that traditional business could use this form of media? I would really love your creative ideas on the below business……

Hand Carwash

Tax Accountants

Dentists

Clothes Boutiques

Optometrists

Here’s a quick hello to all going to Connect Now – can’t wait to see you there! I used 2 of my new “mutimerisms” (as Iggy Pintado likes to call them) in the vid, who can pick them???   Those who are not going…then tuck into Jades post below!

This month, there is an amazing conference called Connect Now. This is the first conference of its type in Australia. I attended Marketing Now last year and it brought together the social media community.

Sam and Ben will both be attending and we wanted to share this opportunity with the Thinktank Media Community.

Why you should attend connect now

There are some awesome people attending.

The speakers are top quality. We have Thinktank favorites attending – both @problogger and Gary Vaynerchuk are speaking. There are heaps of other aussies and international guests.

The real gems are in the audience. You get people at all levels of success. There are those that work in the industry and would be able to help you during the breaks. You can chat with many of the speakers. For 2-3 days, there develops a strong community around learning and sharing.

You can tweet us at @thinktankmedia and @sammutimer. If we are able to, we will meet up and connect with you during the event.

It empowers you to learn more about social media

I’ve met people that have paid over $1’000 for a one day conference. In many cases, they just know the basics and are struggling to grow their social media events.

They usually come away from these events buzzing. They’ve learned a lot from the presenters and attendees. They’ve got recommendations of blogs and books that are targeted to their situation. They’ve got business cards of people who are willing to help them learn more.

They are utilising the tools they are talking about

Siobhan has worked really hard to make sure they have a kick arse social media presence. She created twitter lists for both attendees and and the speakers. She has organised a Connect Now iphone app though Motherapp. The guy behind that initiative is also speaking. There will also be a bunch of us – attendees and speakers – contributing to the posterous account over the next month. Even if you have no intention of attending the event, you should definitely look at how Connect Now is being promoted via social media.

You’ll get free copies of some of the latest social media releases

If you attend the first day, you’ll get a copy of The Whuffie Factor and Engage. If you attend the second, you’ll get a copy of Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk. I’ve read all of these books and they are brilliant. If you’re lucky, you may even be able to get them signed!

Don’t worry if you can’t attend – we’ll keep you up to date.

We understand that some businesses may not be able to afford the fee this year. That’s cool. This is destined to become a major part of the social media industry and there will be other chances to attend. We’ll try to bring you all the awesome goss from the event. We’ll cover some of the new trends on the blog and will  keep you up to date via the twitter feed.

Over to you

I believe that anybody wanting to learn about social media would get a lot out of this conference. I’m that passionate about it that I’ve been working for free, blogging for the organisers and helping out with their social media presence. I get no compensation for this.

If you’ve been wanting to attend but have had some reservations, respond in the comments. We’ll either reply or pass them onto the organisers.

http://www.connectnow.net.au/

Jade Craven

Very recently I was making enquires about a sales management resource for a client. I posted my request on Twitter and got a response from a Twitter Buddy. Shortly after, I was contacted by the book’s publishers, who were obviously monitoring their brand on search. Not long after, they were answering direct questions about whether it would suit my specific needs or not.

They also took the opportunity to open up a discussion on their business’s Facebook page and post the questions I had to the people that had already read the book.

Honestly it was beautiful. No sales pitch.

To a consumer, there is risk in trying something new. No doubt you know that feeling of purchasing a product and getting it home only to find it didn’t represent the value you paid for it or it won’t fit the purpose for which you bought it.

This is an age old theory:

“The central problem of consumer behaviour is the choice. Since the outcome of choice can be only be known in the future, the consumer is forced to deal uncertainty” -James W. Taylor -The Journal of Marketing - April 1974

They were able to connect me to third party advocates that let me measure the suitability of the book and remove any risk anxiety I had immediately. Social Media is yet another opportunity to create a very positive brand experience that consumers carry with them. This is a five minute exercise you can do each day. There may be times you need to put out a fire or just serve people. I think this is pretty simple and there is no need to complicate this process.

Have you had an experience like this online? Tell me about it below and how it made you feel.

Natalie Giddings is Thinktank Media’s Senior Social Media Strategist and she has extensive experience managing brands presence both online and offline.

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of a fair few meetings over the past few months with current, potential, and not-so-potential clients. Over this time, i’ve noticed a glaringly obvious consistency with which of the three categories so many businesses end up in.
A business’ culture is the overriding factor in how successful social media can be. When pitted against one another, culture will inevitably overpower social media’s potential.

When one business comes to the table already claiming they don’t have the time nor the will to adapt their culture to one of sharing and listening, its pretty obvious which of the three categories they’ll end up in. The tragedy in this is so often their business, and industry, is ideal to bear the fruit of what social media can offer!

So what is it about a business’ culture that can possibly prevent social media from ever being integrated into their organisation, and how do we go about changing that?

Social Media, as a title, seems to have already lost its core meaning in all the hype surrounding it. Being ‘social’ means to engage with your community. If your workplace is one of top-down oppression, enforcing policies and stifling engagement with your targeted customer base, it is hardly an environment which will organically promote your employees to listen, speak, share, engage, and be receptive.

And this is where a social media campaign will suffocate everytime.

So how do you get you business to succeed at social media?

All the hints to the answer are in the previous description.
Practice what you preach through a cultural shift.
If you practice top-down oppression within the workplace, inevitably that culture will reflect how your employees treat your customers – with a top-down view of ‘this is what i bring, my way goes’.

Apply the principles of social media internally first. The inherent beauty of social media is that the culture it brings is a natural collaborative culture of listening, speaking and engaging. It is also one of trust: one of the greatest attributes a workplace can enjoy.
Remember, your employees are your brand. Trust, acknowledge & empower them by listening and being receptive to their thoughts and you’re well on your way to instilling a modern, invigorating workplace culture. Forget ‘top-down’ and blend it with ‘bottom-up’ and you’ll find this spreads to how you interact with your customers. Expanding your campaign externally will become a natural, organically social progression with the whole team on-board.

It won’t be about how your employees treat your customers anymore. It will be about how they listen, acknowledge, share and engage with them. Cultural change in the workplace is a powerful tool.

Strategy: A plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world. In military terms there is a distinction between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the long-range planning and development that leads to victory. Tactics deals with the deployment of troops and weapons in actual combat.

For your brand, there is no shortage of marketing activities that can draw your resources and without employing a strategy, this can lead to little impact and mixed messages online.  How do you know which ones to choose? What social media channels do you need to be involved in? Unlike ever before, there is the opportunity to engage and connect with your audience but even more chances to miss the mark.

The sheer volume of information on this topic is mind blowing and it easy to get carried away with the next thing without first thinking through the best practices. The myth is that social media is easy, free and available to everyone. I would argue that it is effective and empowering but not easy, your time is not free and not everyone will know how to use it.

How do you know when to take the messages offline or how both spheres best complement each other. The hand should know what the foot is doing in for maximum leverage. A large though disconnected army, has a big disadvantage against a tight, concentrated team.

So lets look at Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz ,Vimeo as the ‘tactical’ elements then the overarching strategy it as the ‘why’ we are doing what we are doing. Below are elements we include in any social media strategy and answering all of these questions below is healthy start to getting you on track.

What are you trying to achieve?

You need to understand how your audience is using Social Media? Finding, listening, monitoring is all part of strategising ways to engage with your target market across multiple Social Media platforms.

• What is your unique value proposition? The one thing that makes you unique. Just simple copying what your competitors is doing leads to nowhere.

• How Will You Measure Success? Setting up measurement KPI to test and measure what channels are working best, what adjustments to make or what to freeze altogether.

This post doesn’t even touch the surface of the ‘what and how’ of a social media strategy. I intend to go into more depth by the guidance of your comments, so feel free to comment below in regards to what you want to know. I can’t wait to blog about strategy further!

The purpose of this post is to share with you one of my role models within the online world. Damn this guy is so heart pumpingly great that I just had to dedicate a post to him. Why am I sharing this with you? In business, we all need outside influences that fire us up, get us to think differently, challenge our beliefs and assist us to think then action these thoughts.

Gary Vaynerchuck caught my attention from the very first 3min video I saw from him way back last year. His animated and effervescent personality combined with his strong beliefs and ethics in business simply set off a fire works show in my head. I was hooked!

Gary’s insights into social media are inhaled by millions across the globe! It’s not all about the facebook, twitter and youtube accounts you have, it’s about community and relationships and how you use the tools to make this happen. He is a walking, talking example of how you can ultilise social media within business/branding, whilst being authentic, creative, caring about your community and of course working extremely hard.

I wanted to share this phenomenal energy fueled business man with you (that’s if you have not had a taste already). I truly believe he assisted me to sky rocket forwards, strengthening the confidence in me to do what I want to do, and be who I want to be within my career choice.

Here is his latest presentation at Le Web 2009. It’s a full 25 minutes long and I promise, you will all take something away from this presentation, that will get you to think a little differently within your own business/organisation..life! A must watch… and I don’t often say that.

In the words of Twitter themselves –“Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now”. By far my favorite feature on Twitter (at the moment) is the classic #hashtag. They are certainly nothing new, but no less very valuable to you.

What are hashtags?

 It is quite simply a mention in your tweets with a topic defined with a #.  People can just click on the hashtag and follow the entire conversation. The most current example of this is the following Australian politics and the over turn of the oppositions leadership via the hashtag #spill last week.   The most up to date information has been coming through Twitter.

Why use hashtags?

1. Join a global conversation not in your usual tweet stream.
2. Track an event eg. Footy match or global conference in real time.
3. Gets you on the radar of a heap more tweets.
4. Follow the latest in a particular news story.
5. Grab the hottest info from your chosen industry or interest.
6. Find new interesting tweeps.
7. Attend an event you couldn’t otherwise make it too.
8. Watch your favourite TV show with people all over the country while seeing their opinions and input live.

How do I use hashtags?

1. Click on a hashtag that interests you and add your view by adding the hashtag in your tweet.
2. Create a topic others may like to discuss or follow.
3. If you are running an event, get your attendees to use the hashtag.
4. Monitor global hashtag conversation here at http://www.hashtags.org/

 Follow or invent one today. I would love to hear your most beloved use of the humble #hashtag below.

There has recently been an increase in the places businesses are choosing to spend their dollars marketing and advertising new products and services.  Facebook is now one of the powerful places where marketing $$$ are moving . This simply makes me beam! We can now roll out campaigns that are creative, catchy, have a reasonably low budget and the golden key – get connected, engage and stay connected with people by a quick status update.

Let’s look at one of many successful Facebook campaigns that have been rolled out recently.

IKEA, in Sweden, have been reaping the rewards from their new showroom campaign.

How did they do this?

Forsman and Bondenfors were asked to engage people in the opening of the new IKEA store in Malmö. IKEA wanted to spread the word of their new store fast whilst creating awareness well beyond Malmö.

Instead of recreating the wheel, they decided to utilise a platform that was already there: Facebook, the largest Social Network Platform in the world, with well over 325 million active users…..half of which log on daily for 25 minutes an average session.

They also used the most popular function Facebook has in their strategy  – TAGGING!

After creating a Facebook profile for the store manager, they then uploaded pictures of their showrooms to his photo album.

The person that tagged their name on a product first, won it. The demand for more new pictures from IKEA spread quickly growing thousands more people through their profile page, news feed and links.

This in itself is powerful. Why get a person to look at a banner with furniture, when you can get them to personally promote IKEA.

Watch the video to gain a greater understanding of how this worked.

In a nutshell, Facebook is a powerful, engaging and connective place to raise awareness of a brand. When a campaign strategy is executed correctly, Facebook is well up there with many other successful marketing campaigns. Are your motor neurons firing yet?