Talk To Me!

One of the most crucial elements of social media is engagement and interaction. When we post something, be it a simple Facebook post or an in depth blog post, we want to know people are reading it. A response is like a little present. Who doesn't like presents?

So, how do we get that interaction? How do we get people to respond and interact with us? To build a dialogue? It actually starts with us. We need to pose our posts in a way that encourage responses. Then, we need to ask for the response - "What is your favorite winter activity?" "How do you handle negative posts on your Facebook wall?" "What do you think is the most annoying aspect of Twitter?" Questions that are too broad, like "How do you feel?" or "What do you think?" may be viewed as too time intensive to answer, so make it simple.

Another way we can encourage dialogue is to participate ourselves. If we visit a blog, follow a Facebook Page, or subscribe to tweets, when we post a comment or a response, that author is grateful. We gave them a present! Often times, the author will return the favor by following us and reciprocating the response to help us out as well. It's kind of a pay-it-forward mentality. We are all learning this together and can help by helping each other.

So, how did you pay-it-forward in social media today?

Social Media Process: Step 5

As I have shared throughout these five steps, social media is an involved and engaged process. We need to present at every step, and that includes after the inital time investment is complete. This is where the final step in my Social Media Process comes into play, Manage and Monitor.

By now we are participating in our social media platform(s). We should be actively managing our content, followers, and interactions. Making sure questions and comments are being responded to appropriately, value-added content is being generated, and we are staying fresh are all crucial to proper management.

The monitoring aspect should be opening a dialogue within our organization. What is working? What is not working? How can we be better? Reviewing our Plan from Step 2, what tactics do we need to adjust? Are we meeting our goals and updating them for the next 30, 60, 90 days?

This Manage and Monitor step is an ongoing process and must continue. In fact, the whole 5-Step Social Media Process must constantly continue to incorporate new technologies and trends.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Next week I'm going start a series of posts on the big picture of social media and venues you may not have heard about.

Connect with me at www.lbspeaksonline.com or www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.

Social Media Process: Step 4

Step 4 in my Social Media Process is to Engage and Interact.

Having completed Step 1, Step 2, and Step 2 (Side Note), we are now comfortable and familiar with who constitutes our audience. This is important because it is allows us to tailor our messages and themes to the demographics of that audience. Topics we discuss with a group of male tweens/teens is often significantly different from topics discussed with middle-aged females.

According to our schedule of consistency (Step 2), we want to start actively using our account. Maybe we have formed a committee to set the theme for our week's interaction, we are working on a particular campaign, or we have an altogether different strategy. However we are going to handle postings, here are a few important reminders:

• Social media is not about us. It is about our followers. It is about giving them an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with organizations, like us, that have products and/or services they love.
• Give people a reason to connect. Followers connect because there is a benefit. Maybe followers are privvy to special information and discounts, they get to review products, participate in contests with prizes, whatever the reason - give a reason.
• DO NOT information dump. Distributing information is an invaluable aspect, but it should not be the sole focus of our interaction. Pose thought-provoking questions, observations, acknowledgements of clients/patrons/members, and musings.
• ALWAYS respond. If a follower posts a question or comment on our social media platform, they should expect a response within two to four hours MAXIMUM. Now, if we post information about an upcoming event and one of our followers comments, "I'll be there!" we can take the opportunity to interact and comment back, "it will be great to see you," or we can let the opportunity pass. However, it is absolutely positively beyond necessary to respond immediately if one of our followers comments, "what time does the event start?" Not responding could mean that follower doesn't show up and our efforts have been wasted.
• Tailor messages. We need to tailor our message to the demographics of our audience AND to the social media platform. For instance, if we are on Twitter and Facebook, we would not share the same exact message on both platforms. Why? Because we can use hashtags and mentions in Twitter, but they would look impersonal and out of place in Facebook.
• Share stories. Sharing stories makes us more personable and real. It makes our followers feel more connected to us and it opens the door for them to share and participate.
• Be fun. We shouldn't be all business all the time. Occasionally, post something about what is going on in our office. Maybe we are enjoying cake for Sandy's birthday or we're having a taco lunch buffet to celebrate reaching an internal goal.
• Include pictures and graphics. Give our audience that additional dose of personalism and connection.
• Consistency is key. Stay on track and post according to our schedule. Two to four times a week keeps us relevant and interesting, without inundating our followers.

 

Graphic Copyright (c) 2006 - 2010 Tenaya Group, LLC. Article by Brian Phipps. 

 People are often worried about quantity - how many followers do I have? Why don't I have more? I need more! We should be worried about the quality of our followers. I would rather have 100 followers who are thoroughly engaged and care about my services than 1,000 followers who just receive my postings. Strong content along with engagement and interaction attracts more followers.

Connect with me at www.lbspeaksonline.com or at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.

Social Media Process: Step 3

We've come to Step 3 in my Social Media Process. By now, we should have completed the Where Are You in Social Media worksheet from Step 1, addressed the numerous issues mentioned in Step 2, and have taken into account the different demographics and purposes of each social media platform from Step 2 (Side Note).

Step 3, we actually get to Create Our Presence. It seems like a significant way into the process before we are able to do this, but hopefully we understand why after reading through the previous steps. We are already leaps and bounds ahead of others because, according to a study done by Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent, 86% of All People Don't Know the Plan Comes First. Since we have invested the time in planning up front, we won't need to backtrack and start over like so many before us.

On to creating our presence. Depending on the time and resources we have allotted, we may want to start with creating just one presence, the one most dominantly reflected in our Where Are You in Social Media worksheet from Step 1. This allows us to create and tweak our social media routine before adding another platform.

When creating our account, if possible, it is important we have a centralized e-mail address or login credentials. This allows ease of separation between employee personal and work accounts.

Once the account is created, we must be diligent in making sure it is a consistent reflection of our organization.

• Make the logo and color scheme recognizable to our audience(s). 
• Use our logo, tagline, etc. to incorporate branding.
• Complete all information. For example, Facebook has an 'Info' tab. We need to have our address, hours, phone number, web site, and, if appropriate, our disclaimer posted.
• Ensure settings are where we want them to be so we are allowing the engagement and interactivity to meet the goals in our plan.

Once we have created our presence, ask a select group of people to connect with us and test features like posting text and photos, deleting posts, monitoring activity, etc. This is our opportunity to experiment before we get to full on engagement.


What organization features your favorite social media presence?


Connect with me at www.lbspeaksonline.com or at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.  

Social Media Process: Step 2 (Side Note)

After my last post, I received several private e-mails asking about demographics for popular sites. Here is a little information that may help.

In February, Royal Pingdom published a highly informative article, "Study: Ages of Social Network Users." The graphic below, along with other valuable information, accompanied the article.



However, we know how rapidly social media and its demographics change. The amazing Tammy Camp published "Crafting Content To Social Media Demographics" just a few weeks ago in October. Excellent information accompanied her graphic below as well.

 

I applaud those of you who were question the demographics. Knowing our audience as well as their demographics gives us great precision in creating valuable and engaging content. If the information we provide isn't relevant, than neither are we.

Completing the Where Are You in Social Media worksheet from Step 1, addressing issues mentioned in Step 2, and taking into account the different demographics and purposes of each social media platform, will prepare you to move on to Step 3 with me next week.

Connect with me at www.lbspeaksonline.com or at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.