You can see the fear in their eyes.
You can see it in their body language during meetings when the topic comes up.
It’s the fear of social marketing.
Sure, everyone is talking about social marketing, but a lot of marketing executives and business owners have the fear. It’s the fear of not knowing the jargon, the fear of losing marketing control, the fear of what the marketplace is saying about your brand, the fear of being embarrassed to ask questions or ask for help, the fear of telling peers or consultants that social marketing is a complete mystery, that kids know more about it than a professional marketer.
It’s the fear of screwing it up and reading about it across the web and in business publications.
The fear is understandable. The number of so-called social marketing experts is astounding, as is the flood of information about social marketing success, failure and strategy.
Where do you start?
How do you start?
When do you start?
The process itself seems simple, but realistically you may need a social marketing partner you can trust depending on your marketplace, the size of your organization, your internal capabilities, your budget and your objectives.
Here are a few questions to answer:
- Who is your audience?
- What are your objectives?
- What is your strategy?
- What technology should you use?
Most reputable social marketing professionals will use this P.O.S.T. process (people, objectives, strategy, technology). It may sound rather simple, but it’ll require a good amount of effort and discussion to answer the questions. You’ll discover that the answers to most of these questions are similar to what you’re already doing in your advertising and marketing programs.
And, if you can develop solid answers for the first three questions, the last question will be easier to answer. Also, the question of technology comes last because it’s prone to change fairly rapidly as new tools, sites and technology enter the marketplace.
You should integrate your social marketing with your overall marketing strategy. And with social marketing, you can start small, but you should start soon. It’s the idea of the continual beta… launch, measure, improve, measure, improve, etc.
Don’t push your marketing message or try to control the conversation. If you go where your customers are, where your prospects are, and you engage in conversation, facilitate communication, and do it honestly, you’ll find it’s easier than you had imagined.
Your loyal customers–your best customers–will welcome your effort.
