Social media started off as a fresh new online channel where everyone has a voice. It lifted the boundaries of communication and should spell some potential for marketers to make an impact on their customers. However, not everyone was liking the idea of giving people the freedom to do what they like. The lack of control intimidates these PR individuals but that is not the case for everyone. There are people that come up with solid strategies to bend the platform towards their favor.
If you see that the potential is there and you do not know what strategy to embrace, have a good look at your team first and see if there are people with some available resources that can make it happen. Collaborate these people and take a good look at your current marketing situation right now. Identify the message you are currently trying to send to consumers and see if you have a branding policy in place. In the jump to social media, you may need to refine your brand identity.
All the major social networks have millions of registered users belonging to various niches so impressing the majority of your target market will always be a challenge. This is where you have to approach your brand in various fronts and make the necessary changes that make your identity more resonating to the public.
Making an impact to social networking users is more than just slapping a shiny new logo on the profile page. You also need to figure out what messages you want to send to the people viewing your social media page. The technique is to not make things look too scripted or too professional. Remember, you are dealing with ordinary people and these are not the type of people that are willing to read press releases that are more than 10 paragraphs long.
It is better to give the team a good idea on how you want your target market to react. As long as the facts are always contained in the message, the team members should find out their own creative ways in conveying the message. This makes social networking posts look a lot more natural, personal and convincing.
Being personal makes your representatives and brand more approachable but the professional aspect shouldn’t be completely lost. A set of corporate guidelines can help so you can restrict your team from discussing the company using personal profiles.
This is why the team should have access to a centralized business page where all business matters take place there. If there will be lots of people working on that page, give them all common identities so people can recognize that they are linked to this brand.
To address the “lack of control” situation, simply give a set of guidelines to encourage other social media users to comment constructively. There will always be people giving negative feedback of various forms. Your strategy can be to simply state that you have the right to remove any vulgar comments. At the same time, address constructive criticism nicely and you will keep your fans on board. In fact, giving good support to people viewing your social media page can possibly cause these people to talk about your brand more through word of mouth and that is where the real potential of social media begins.
