6 social media platforms at a glance

Kent Lewis
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Social Media Posted on August 24, 2009

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Social media marketing in action

Step 6: Get going!
Armed with company descriptions and links to social media content (images, videos, articles, and press releases), start creating social media profiles. Identify and address any potential issues relating to your company or products by following the success factors addressed earlier. Stay active in relevant communities. Monitor and engage as appropriate, offering suggestions, providing feedback, and answering specific questions. For bonus points, participate in expert forums like Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Q&A to build thought leadership. Create and syndicate targeted, original content so the influencers can see it.

Remember, social networks are ideal for proactive online reputation management. Well-optimized profiles tend to appear in search results for your brand, which, in turn, block out less desirable content.

Conclusion
Social media can be time consuming, confusing, and difficult to measure. By following the six steps outlined in the social media marketing checklist above, the marketing team at any company can outpace the competition and come out shining in the eyes of executive management and its customers.

Kent Lewis is president of Anvil Media and Formic Media, two search engine and social media marketing agencies based in Portland, Ore.

On Twitter? Follow Lewis at @kentjlewis. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.

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Kent Lewis February 9, 2010 at 11:08 AM

Kay,

Indeed, there are regulations in regards to healthcare & pharma that you need to be aware of. When we worked with a Fortune 250 pharma, we were not allowed to engage in social media, due to the "averse effects" clause, where our client has an obligation to respond to any comments from customers regarding any averse effects of their medications. Compound the issue with HIPAA and SEC compliance (if publicly traded) then you've got challenges indeed. Feel free to drop me a line with questions kent (at) anvil media dot com.

Kay Ram February 9, 2010 at 9:50 AM

Hey Kent ,

I loved your article and I was wondering if you can help me ... what about legal regulations regarding social media in the pharmaceutical branch ?

Many thanks

Julia Kinslow January 13, 2010 at 12:39 PM

Great content on developing and utilizing a viable social media strategy.

I wrote a similar post talking about the stages of making a social media presence and strategy. I believe it's important to stress spending time "listening" first to what is being said about your company, and then finding out where your customers are. Then it's time to engage.

All the best, Juila
http://wp.me/pCpWj-bq

Andrew Ballenthin October 10, 2009 at 4:47 AM

Kent, great content. Where did you collect the data from? I'm presently writing a book on social media monetization for Pearson and looking to share this type of data. I'd like to be able to quote this data in my book but need to know where the demographic data came from and who the origniating author of this content is.
Please email me at your earliest convenience andrew@solsolutions.ca.

Radu Trandafir September 8, 2009 at 1:58 AM

Excellent article. Thanks for organizing the info in such a functional way!

Lenni Eubanks August 28, 2009 at 12:24 PM

Thanks for the article, really helpful, esp the summaries in Step 5.

Kent Lewis August 25, 2009 at 12:03 AM

Kip, thanks for the comment. At a glance, metrics should be based on your campaign objectives, audience and platforms. You're on the right track, in that basic metrics include friends, followers, fans, connections, views, etc. but you should be looking at focusing in on and weighing engagement metrics more heavily:

-Twitter: retweets, replies, mentions, etc. (think Twitalyzer)
-Facebook: wall comments, likes, shares, etc.
-LinkedIn: recommendations, best answers, etc.

I suggest checking out the articles in our Resources section for additional detail:
http://www.anvilmediainc.com/search-engine-marketing-articles.html

I hope this helps.

Gunther Sonnenfeld August 24, 2009 at 6:23 PM

Kent - great overview on the use of SM platforms; this should give folks, particularly those new to the space, a good idea of the possibilities.

-G

Leslie Cawley August 24, 2009 at 4:06 PM

Excellent article and I might add that even with negative reviews and ratings, you can till take from the comments and learn how to improve on what you have to offer the targeted audiences. As Mr. Lewis has already done, the demographics are clear for each of the popular social netoworking sites and all one has to do is visit to learn even more about the user interests, what ads are posted, what they don't like and what can be added to create more value. Just use the internet and search engines as a guide and even talk with representatives of the groups you may know fo find our more about them. It can be done.

kip steele August 24, 2009 at 1:48 PM

Great article Kent.
What would you suggest which statistics people use to measure the success of a social media campaign? Twitter = followers? Facebook = friends? Thanks. Kip