- 83% of marketers indicate social media is important for their business (source: Social Media Examiner)
- 75% plan to increase their spending in social media this year (source: Wildfire)
- Only 37% think their Facebook efforts are effective (Social Media Examiner)
- Only 26% are able to measure their social activities (Social Media Examiner)
These statistics says businesses believe in social media. They are going to invest in it. Yet, results are elusive and, much of the time, don’t meet expectations.
Do businesses believe in social media but jump into it without a plan? Do they Ready. Fire. Aim. Here are 31 ways to tell.
BUILD: What is the social media effort built upon?
- Build it and they will come is an expectation
- The plan is to hire interns to do it
- “We’re in social media. We have a Facebook page” inaugurates the effort
- “Follow us on…” is a strategy
- Enabling comments is a question
- The competition isn’t looked into at the start of the effort
- Integration with the rest of the marketing effort isn’t considered
- Your boss asks you to set up a Pinterest page but your audience is male
- Your boss never asks: “Who do we want to attract, “where do we find them,” or what action should they take?”
- Your boss asks 6 months after the effort began: “Why are we doing this again?”
ENGAGE: What is the strategy for engagement?
- “Like us on Facebook” is a traffic-driving strategy
- Press releases comprise the majority of posts
- There is no content calendar
- The content strategy is to post at least 3X a week; quantity always has the priority
- The competition isn’t reviewed for learning and insights
- When someone posts a questionable comment, five people have to call a meeting on what to do
- You promote your brand more than you say thanks to other
MEASURE: What is the measurement plan?
- There is no business strategy for social media against which to have a measurement plan
- There is no measurement plan
- The measurement plan is only “Vanity Metrics” – Like, Tweets, ReTweets. There is no connection to real business results – leads, conversions, sales
- Only social media metrics are looked at; there is no integration of measurements from other areas of the marketing mix
- Progress against the competition isn’t considered
- There are no “social listening” tools like Topsy, Social Searcher or Booshaka utilized for audience feedback
- There is no audience segmentation to determine: Advocates, influencers, participants and detractors
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), an actionable scorecard to keep the business strategy on track, are never established; partly, because there is no business strategy
IMPROVE: Where do we go from here?
- There are no regular meetings to determine learning and look for insights
- Future content is never determined based on audience needs or feedback
- The definition of the audience is they “Like” us on Facebook or “Follow” us on Twitter
- The impact of social media on other areas of the marketing mix is never mentioned
- Whenever there is a meeting to discuss the social media, no specific actions are taken
- If there are actions discussed, they are: “we have to get more people to ‘Like’ us on Facebook” and “more ‘Followers’ on Twitter.”
- Your boss asks again: “Why are we doing this?”
Social media changes marketing from a monologue to a dialogue. That’s a pretty big deal. Although the “media” is very available and low or no cost to use, the “social” part takes carefully planning.
We recommend businesses do Social Listening and Audience Profiling, first. To practice what we preach, we have a program that gets you started to give your business the focus and direction needed. Learn more about it on the sidebar of this website.
Do you think businesses use Ready. Fire. Aim as the social media plan? Do these examples influence you?
