What’s the right social media strategy?
Listen to a marketer and he will tell you the best use of social media is for marketing and promotions. Talk to a sales rep and she will say Facebook should be used to sell products. A brand expert will say the best fit for social media is brand-building. A public relations guy will say it should be all about influence and a crisis expert will say crisis management.
What is the ‘right’ approach to social media?
In today’s saturated communications environment, audiences routinely ignore companies that fail to cut through the clutter – a challenge for many firms, not least those saddled with undifferentiated products and services that people are unlikely to talk about or those expected to deliver a good basic level of service and little more (eg. utilities).
And there remain many examples – many too many – of firms self-combusting on the social web, often as a result of approaching social in the wrong way.
Here are some slides (presented last week at conferences in Singapore and Hong Kong) that set out a simple five-step process for developing an effective social media strategy that puts reputation building and protection at its centre.