By Sharon A.M. MacLean who invites your comments following this blog. You can also find more modern marketing strategies for business here. http://bit.ly/1cKPcjn
Keystone cops from the great silent-film comedies refer to, in this case, a lack of coordinated social media tactics performed with great zeal on behalf of your company. The term describes how nobody really understands what’s happening or gets where it’s all going.
“I see people doing tactics before setting up distribution networks,” says Olivier Taupin who owns 100+ groups on LinkedIn with 1.4 million members. It’s better to first establish the proper mindset for social business as part of an overall strategy.
Here’s four more red lights the social media strategist encounters on a regular basis.
- This increasingly common request: “We want you to manage our social media.” There’s great expectations for product launches and frantic calls to promote attendance at special events—yet, relationships haven’t been established to help share the messages on networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and Pinterest. The CRM’s email database is incomplete, too.
- “We have an event in 2 weeks and need a Twitter campaign to fill the room.” Alarmingly, this is a familiar call. The challenge is the company has insufficient followers which often leads to reliance on the network belonging to their social media specialist. It never works because the vendor’s followers generally have nothing to do with your business. Don’t get us wrong: It is possible to generate much interest with little advance notice using certain tactics but those relationships are shaky and likely won’t last.
- “We know our customers. We have a list.” You may know your clients well after years of long-time service but there will be trouble going forward finding new prospects. Customers retire…move on…change positions. You constantly need to develop the sales funnels and new prospects are living online.
- “My company doesn’t have a social media plan but I’m pretty good.” Yes, individuals may have connections here and there on various networks but the overall company is entirely disconnected. “The future belongs to the corporation that recognizes its strength is the sum of personal brands belonging to all who work there,” predicts Olivier.
- Hiring a social media manager to do it all does not work. If you assign all responsibility for social media to a single person, “You are setting up the social media manager for failure.” You might want to call the position a social media coordinator since it is not possible for one individual to do it all. “The good news is when 100 people send out 100 positive tweets about a product launch, the brand takes full advantage of the power of social media.”
Confusion also reigns when social media is not aligned with the corporate vision, mission, and strategic objectives. If all the departments are constantly tripping over each other, the promise of your brand becomes an empty pledge. Worse, a brand can derail.
Each department may be using social media but employees are using different networks for reasons known only to them. For example, branding gets confused when HR considers the company culture to be traditional in nature but IT staff regard themselves as forward thinking while PR delivers still another profile to investors and the media.
Sales Bench Index (SBI) echoes this message in How to make your number in 2016. This insightful report advised that, in 2001, “57% of the buyer journey was complete before a salesperson was actively involved in the process. By 2015, this number had reached 69%.” Content marketing did not work so well and neither did social selling or free trials—if these strategic plans masqueraded as strategy.
Departments were working in isolation and in conflict with one another. “…The wheels were all spinning, but not in the same direction,” noted SBI.
“It’s time to set up a collaborative group drawn from key departments,” says Olivier. “Social media is everybody’s business,” which means that representation comes from sales, marketing, operations, customer support, IT, and HR.
Before you start, here’s some guiding principles.
- Train your employees and then trust them. Host regular company webinars/seminars to update employees, deliver general information materials including the annual report and on-boarding guidelines, send event hashtags and photos for sharing to employees together with corporate identity logos.
- Link everybody. CEOs are linked to their direct report and one level lower. All employees are linked to their team lead who make up the umbrella group for social media. This helps the entire company know what each other is saying and doing in the networks, implement a rapid response strategy when required, and immediately handle customer service requests.
- We’re all receptionists emphasizes Olivier which means employees at all levels become the eyes and ears of the company. Where responsibilities previously were assigned to a single individual, “we’re all part of it.”
As to general social media policy, keep it simple, says Olivier:
- Confidential information is not shared;
- All shared information is positive;
- The corporate identity that includes logo, colours, and content previously approved by the company is available for publication;
- New material is passed by communications marketing or respective unit managers before publication;
- Comments align with the company culture outlined within the vision, mission, values, and current strategic objectives.
Now you’re ready for the 7-Point Setup Plan
- Conduct an audit. Learn which networks your employees have joined on behalf of the company, determine their activity level, and whether messages are aligned.
- Form a collaborative social media team with department heads to build an aligned and coordinated social media strategy.
- Set up personal profiles on selected networks for all executives who don’t have accounts including the CEO and members of the board.
- Set up the company page on LinkedIn.
- Position the Twitter account with an individual rather than the corporate logo.
- Set up profiles on LinkedIn for everyone in your business unit. If you have 100 people in a business unit, you have 100 LinkedIn profiles on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
- Ensure that everyone is linked together through the social media coordinator appointed by the collaboration team.
Next up: Build connections, followers and fans on each of the social channels. This helps with finding your existing customers online as well as attracting people with a potential interest in your business.
Lifelong communications strategist Sharon MacLean owned and published a traditional print magazine for over 21 years for business people. She is certified in Integrated Online Strategies from the University of San Francisco and the Instant Customer Mastery Certified Professional Program.
Barbara Carr
Thanks, Sharon, How important it is for us to oversee that alignment of our corporate values and mission statements in all our social media. Great tips!
Sharon A.M. MacLean
You got the essence of it all, Barbara. I believe we need to strip it back for clients before creating strategy to confirm their vision, mission, and values.
Beverley Golden
I’m enjoying Oliver’s tips on how to optimize social media, Sharon and I really love the idea of everyone being included and onboard in a company, as of course, relationships are key in every area of life. Envisioning having 1.4 million connections and managing 100+ groups is somewhat mind boggling, yet, he seems to walk his talk. One has to enjoy the online space and also to be in it, in a way that represents who you are and how you want to connect with others. This is different for each person and realizing this and utilizing this to maximize a companies’ overall presence, makes perfect sense to me. And as you and Oliver point out, it does start with a forward thinking mindset!
Sharon A.M. MacLean
I met Olivier in 2009, Beverley, and assigned a story on this visionary in 2010. We met up recently again on Twitter and he definitley has good counsel for all of us in this business. He walks his talk and I’m quite excited to be his voice.
Carol Adamy Rundle
These are some great recommends for larger companies. As a one-woman show, picking and choosing which tasks to outsource are my highest concern.
Sharon A.M. MacLean
I do think there are elements here for small biz, too, Carol. Especially about looking to our clients to become champions, too.
rozbeads
Our WEbMaster just completed an audit and we are now strategizing plans, steps, actions, etc . The most exciting aspect of our small business and one we didn’t expect was learning about social media marketing. We realize Rome was not built in a day, and so we are taking actions, planting seeds and looking ahead.
Sharon A.M. MacLean
I wish my clients all understood this, Roz. Gotta keep planting seeds and culling as we go along.
blockmomnc
Awesome post that makes total social sense
Clive Maloney
This is a really good post. Thanks Sharon! I was really surprised by your second bullet whereby someone expected a Twitter campaign to suddenly fill a room at the drop of a hat. Do you get requests like that often?
Sharon A.M. MacLean
I’ve handled a couple, Clive. Olivier, as well.
A recent request was in February from an IT company who booked a booth and seminar at the IBM confernece in Las Vegas. We piggybacked the power of IBM bloggers/marketers/partners to help build relationships on Twitter and LinkedIn. It was a whirlwind but turned out quite well for the client.
Olivier’s also handled events overseas for Oracle who needed to boost attendance at cororate events.
tradurretranslateblog
Thanks for a good article, and for good pointers at how to set up a good strategy. 🙂
Lisa Mason
This is a fantastic post. I completely agree. I love the 7-point setup plan. Very useful info.
Sharon A.M. MacLean
Makes so much wonderful sense, doesn’t it!
Kristen Wilson (@k10wilson)
I love the plan to have the employees be the social media groupies.. seriously though, empower the employees as they are the front line and better than any social media manager to cover that role. For real. Great points Sharon!
Sharon A.M. MacLean
Thanks, Kristen. And THANKS for letting me know about that typo. It’s like spinach in your teeth and nobody tells you!
Lorii Abela
The social media play an important role in the growth of the business. To keep it in constant growth is to protect it from keystone cops approach. Do all the strategies necessary to prevent them from the influence of the said keystone cops approach.
Beth Blacker
I love the statement “We are all receptionists”. It really does take a village to get the word out. And even if the CEO can’t tweet, post, comment directly, someone definitely should for him or her…assuming they can do it in a genuine and authentic way.
Sharon A.M. MacLean
Me, too. Sometimes we get locked into silos where a job ONLY belongs to a single individual. Not in this case.
Jackie Harder (@keydynamics)
Oh yes! Train employees and trust them. And create a policy that clearly shows what they can and cannot do. Good post!
Sharon A.M. MacLean
Thanks, Jackie. Trusting employees might be the hurdle to get over. 🙂