A Business.com study released today provides further proof that social media is gaining business acceptance quickly—and that few of these businesses have any clue how to leverage it successfully. Does the following data sound reminiscent of your business’ social media strategy?
The study, conducted over the last year with nearly 3,000 participants, found that the average company respondent was running seven separate social media campaigns concurrently. What’s more, two-thirds of the respondents had no reports or metrics into the results of these campaigns, and 65 percent of respondents admitted they had less than two years of experience managing social media for business.
Any effort that is this haphazard is destined for failure. Accountable measures of social media efficacy for business are available, and should be implemented to gauge the successful and unsuccessful portions of the campaign. Here are three I find indispensible:
1) How many meaningful product conversations have you had stemming from your social media outreach?
These conversations don’t have to yield a direct sale (it would be nice if they did, though), but if you’re putting effort into developing a social media presence, you should be gaining knowledge about your product from customers, informing them about your services and advocating your strengths as an organization.
2) How many times has your company been mentioned on blogs or on social networks?
Your social media presence should be providing a visibility increase if it’s executed thoughtfully and diligently. You need to be involved in conversations about your specific industry, product type, or service area. These conversations are taking place (it takes some exploration to find them usually), but influencing them through participation is one of the surefire methods of creating value through social media outreach.
3) How many efforts have been complete failures?
If you can’t identify at least three clear failures in your social media campaigns that have been remedied, you’re either not being creative enough or you’re being too obstinate when confronted with the evidence of flawed practices. Course correction is essential in social media presence. The landscape is fluid, not static, and your presence must mirror the reality of the media to be a positive business extension. I don’t intend this as license to abandon specific initiatives if they haven’t produced results in a week, because successful social media presence development takes serious time. But you need to be honest and realistic when concerted effort over time is not producing results.
What are others you’ve found to be crucial in social media development?
