Paula Hay's List: Social Marketing

• For some clients, we have a trial period of updates that are approved by the client, and then the training wheels are taken off and we can update without each post being approved internally.  For others, we submit one or two weeks worth of content at a time, and this content is approved by both a client and legal department.
• what will be monitored on a weekly and monthly basis. At this point, you should have already outlined your objectives and now just need to determine what key performance indicators you'll track on a regular basis to see how you are driving these objectives.
• fter one month you should already have sufficient data that can help direct and guide the types of content that resonate better within your fan base. You should also have a better understanding of what your updating frequency should look like, what times of day or days of the week are more successful, and if fans are unsubscribing because of too much content posted on the page.  It will also reveal if you need to re-work your current value proposition, tab structures, or promotions so the entire page closely aligns with what your fans want.

1 more annotation...

• In this stage of your Facebook strategy development you should already have your content strategy and value proposition together, and these two should also drive the rationale for what tabs are created and how fans are going to interact with them.

• In a nutshell, the content strategy is the guide for the ongoing content posted to the page.
• This step will require your brand to balance content that will help progress your objectives and content that will help drive the value proposition of the page.  To stay true to the value proposition of the page, you must develop content guidelines for what buckets of content you will post, and hold true to these guidelines for at least a month before reevaluating.

• The following are just some examples of what  "content buckets" may look like.  As you can imagine, these are very specific to the value proposition, company, and objectives for the page.

   
   
  • "Fan Engagement" Specific Posts: Polls,open-ended questions that are designed to specifically garner feedback and engagement from your fans
   
  •  Discount/Deal Posts: Discounts or deals that are specific to fans, or released first to fans
   
  •  Influencer Posts: Content developed by bloggers or other credible parties in the space
• reat post Lisa. I would add that an organization's Facebook content strategy should contemplate connections to owned and operated (O&O) properties. Given that FB is fast approaching 120MM unique visitors, it is a key source for acquiring new audience much like Google is in the context of SEO. Companies are often hamstrung by having separate content strategies for O&O properties and Facebook. This often limits opportunities to convert FB fan page visitors into customers and creates inefficiency in content production.

2 more annotations...

• In this exercise, we must figure out why a fan would want to become a fan in the first place, why they would stay a fan, and how we can get them to become more invested and engaged as a fan.
• Step 1: Develop the Value Proposition

• As you consider what your brand's value proposition should be, ask yourself the following questions:

   
   
  • What do your fans value?
   
  • What do your fans like talking about?
   
  • What can you offer your fans that you can't offer them elsewhere?
   
  • How will you consistently provide this value proposition?
   
   

1 more annotation...

• How do you define what people think is valuable? There are basically four types of behavior that generate value in a loyal community. These are:

   
   
  1. Being viewed as a source of quality information by posting links to high-quality content throughout the Internet (i.e. to blogs, how to, white papers and research).
   
  2. Rebroadcasting Tweets that have links to high-quality content (i.e. industry related content, breaking news).
   
  3. Posting valuable information about yourself and your company (i.e. primers, promotions, coupons, discounts, contest and product information).
   
  4. Replying to direct questions, answering user questions, and customer complaints.

• Don’t expect instant results from your Twitter initiative. You should expect your strategy to go through these four phases:

   
   
  1. Develop a following.
   
  2. Listen and learn about the community.
   
  3. Develop content, provide access to content and become an expert source.
   
  4. Engage with your community.

• Step 1 – Assess business challenges: For businesses to see value in Twitter, strategies must be designed to overcome business challenges. Do you need to get better at customer service? Do you need to encourage incremental sales? Do you want to tap into consumers for research and development?
• what part of that challenge Twitter can help with. Will it help increase peer-to-peer endorsements? Will it let you resolve your most vocal customers’ complaints? Will it make you aware of emerging product or service opportunities that will expand your business?
• What Twitter-specific metrics will you use to measure your success?
• Step 5 – Plot out actions: What tactics will you use to leverage Twitter? Will you conduct outreach to people talking about certain subjects? Will you search people’s profiles for mentions of geographic areas? How often will you post? What topics will you post about?
• Put processes in place that proactively alert the curator of the Twitter presence to hot tweets that need attention. It is key during this phase that the curators be honest with themselves about their time restrictions and willingness to make Twitter a priority. During this phase, also consider the wide range of tools available to make your action plan easier. OneForty offers a great directory of Twitter tools and HootSuite is, for many, a mission critical tool.
• Step 8 – Activate consistently: Make sure that your plans will allow you to keep your Twitter efforts active over the long term. Have backup curators and content in place for the inevitable sick, busy or just plain “over it” days.

4 more annotations...

• Look up at least 10 of your customers on Twitter (a quick name search on Google can turned up their Twitter profiles). Once you’ve found some, look at who they’re following and who they talk to. These people could also become part of your audience. Look at how they describe themselves and what terms they talk about. Use those keywords and terms to find like-minded people.
• 3. How Much is a Twitter Lead Worth?

• The reason you’re involved with Twitter isn’t just to say you’re there, it’s because you’re looking for a good return on investment. So what is it that you’re after? It might be as concrete as sign-ups and sales or as ephemeral as buzz and brand awareness.

  Depending on your goal, try to figure out how much each person is “worth.” This almost certainly won’t be an exact number, but you should get a general idea. For example, if you’re doing B2B sales and a sale is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re going to have a very different strategy than a company with millions of users that makes its money from advertising.
• 4. Set A Goal and Track It

• There are obviously different approaches depending on the size of your fan base. If you have a large audience, you might not be able to put a lot of time into each lead. Your overall goal will likely be about brand awareness and creating buzz for your company. You should consider metrics that capture overall influence such as retweets, blog posts and clicks.

  If you have a targeted audience, each lead probably carries more value. You overall goal will likely be to generate new leads. You should consider metrics like sales, email sign-ups, @messages, direct messages and clicks.

3 more annotations...