Research and analysis of online intelligence. Social media marketing is a constantly evolving and developing field. So the social media specialist at your company needs to be given sufficient time to keep up with the latest research and developments, including:
- Brand research. This differs from the previously discussed monitoring category, as it centers around the articles and official posts about your brand -- not user comments. Your SMS should collect these in order to create interesting, relevant posts. This does not have to be as comprehensive as the social media listening; in fact, in some cases it can be as easily conducted as signing up for daily Google Alerts.
- Daily research on the social media landscape.Task your social media person with compiling regular reports or memos to update the whole team on pertinent social developments. This will help him/her stay up-to-date with the field and provide the team with the latest and most important information
- Competitive analysis. The SMS should be also keeping an eye out on the latest social media programs and campaigns executed by other companies. These can become a source of inspiration for your campaigns, as well as allow you to stay ahead of the game. Don't limit this research to your competitors only. Any interesting social media campaign might become an informative case study. Allow your social media person to share his/her findings with your team to expand their knowledge and inspire them to think outside the box
Strategy development. Let your social media person participate in brainstorming sessions and allow them to create the social media strategy for your campaigns. They have a unique perspective on the online space and are in a position to become intimately familiar with your audience, which can help them establish an informed social media strategy and enrich your overall marketing campaign. Here are some of the components where their input can be particularly valuable:
- Brainstorm participation. Include your SMS in brainstorms while developing your campaign strategy. He/she might have interesting ideas stemming from their intimate knowledge of your consumers. Make sure that your social media strategist is able to discuss his or her ideas with your creative team, media planning, and PR group in order to generate flow and exchange of ideas.
- Development of social media strategy and tactics. Your SMS should be capable of developing comprehensive social strategies and tactics that will suit your social outreach goals. Through regular research efforts, he/she should also be in touch with key trends that can help frame your current marketing efforts.
Side note: What social media stars shouldn't be doing
I have deliberately omitted blogger outreach among the main tasks of a social media person. As far as I'm concerned, if you are truly interested in building out an engaged community from among your consumers across social media networks, that should be your SMS's key focus, and blogger strategy is a whole other animal.
Blogging and building an audience from among the readers and editors of blogs is an entirely different process, which requires different set of skills and an interest in online PR. Blogging platforms might be a part of Web 2.0, but essentially blog writers are editors, not users. If you are interested in working with bloggers, hire a person who can focus on building relationships with different blogging networks, who will follow and read the content on these blogs, and who knows how to build long-lasting relationships with the owners of those blogs.
Digital Diva is a freelance writer.
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