Choosing the right tools for your social media campaign
I was emailing with a virtual colleague of mine about a young media consultant who is known for having thousands upon thousands of Twitter followers. In fact, that’s her primary presence online. We were wondering whether this person’s Twitter stardom would turn into lucrative consulting deals. After all, how much of you intellectual capital can you display in 140 characters? (Those of you who follow me on Twitter during American Idol season might think it actually does the opposite.)
It’s a question that demonstrates how great success in one social media network may not translate to more business for you. And that’s why it’s so important to find the right social media tools to work your campaign, not necessarily the most popular ones. (If you’d like to know how I feel about many company Facebook pages, you can read my post on that subject here.)
So for the fourth post in this series on writing an actionable social media plan, instead of thinking about “should we do twitter and facebook” ask yourself, where are my customers engaged in social media? If you’re B2B, it’s probably not on Facebook. If you’re launching a book, what better place to be than Facebook, where you can set up a fan page and tell all your friends about it? Think about your customers, or readers, or whomever you are trying to reach. What are they using right now? Restaurants, bars and other social types of places better get have a presence on geo-based social media like Yelp and Foursquare. Consultants, I’d suggest having an informative blog that really demonstrates your knowledge of your industry. Whatever you choose, don’t try to be everywhere. Pick a couple of networks that you think you can easily manage and go from there. Just as a quick primer, here is the social media that seems to work well for my clients in different industries:
- B2B – LinkedIn is king, and a well-written blog feeds nicely into it
- Hospitality – Foursquare, Facebook, and of course the online review sites are a good bet
- Retail – Facebook is great, but make sure you aren’t just using it as another advertising tool. Engage with your customers.
- Authors – Twitter is great, but you really need to have thousands of followers to make a big impact. Host Twitter parties, go to tweet ups in your area, and really work this medium. It’s hard but it’s worth it. Have a Facebook page for your book, but start gathering friends on your personal page like crazy too. And spend time in Goodreads.com – this is a fast-growing online community of book lovers and reviewers.
- Technology – A lot of the action is still in discussion forums and chat rooms in this industry. Although there is a new CIO dashboard for Twitter, which I’ve found interesting.
- Media – We’re all on Twitter baby!!
Finally, spend some time choosing a set of tools that will help you manage your activity. Determine if you like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck better for your Twitter feeds. Check out Ping.fm if you’re going to be posting to multiple sites. And don’t go overboard on the distribution sites like Digg…find the ones that your customer uses..not the ones EVERYONE knows. For business, I love BizSugar.com for example.
If you’re not sure what your customers are using just ask them! And let me know if you’ve found great social media for your industry. Share, pleae!
Tags: Bonnie Harris, book PR, Facebook, Foursquare, goals for your social media campaign, linkedin, Marketing, Public Relations, small business promotion, social media for small business, social media plan, tools for your social media plan, twitter
August 30th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Numbers are everything. In the soccer tournament business, it’s all about your GotSoccer score; never mind you can buy into a larger score by advertising or using their software. Parents just want a quick reference number to validate they are the best team. FICO Score is all about a number. Twitter is all about a number. The more followers, the more marketable your bog is, your authorship for a book, your reach for speaker fees, etc, etc.
Does it mean more business? Probably not, but a huge twitter following makes others more comfortable that you are the real thing, whether you are faking it or not. Those with smaller follower counts are just puking sour grapes.
October 23rd, 2011 at 10:23 pm
I understand where you are coming from.
For me, regardless of what field you are in for your business, it’s still very important to use Facebook and Twitter as the 2 main social media tools. But also combining it with the other tools that you mentioned to get specific kinds of audience from. Then focusing more on the ones that are more likely to give you the results that you want.