Often, companies jump onto the social media bandwagon excitedly and look around eagerly to see what they can do to be ‘in the game’.

The result? Twitter accounts and Facebook pages with unexciting contents that gradually fail to interest its followers after they follow/become a fan. Their so-called social media strategy has become yet another method to pump out advertising messages, sales and promotional information and an impersonal one way communication conduit.

This is definitely not wrong, but it is not a true social media strategy. Such an approach shows how a company has failed to understand the essence of social media and leverage on its power.

Social Media is about communication within a social network, and the most powerful aspect of it is the ability to spread viral messages and to enhance the trustworthiness of messages via word-of-mouth. It turns monologues into interactive dialogues and advertisements into conversations.

As with any successful initiative, planning is essential before an effective action plan can be crafted. Social Media is still a relatively new domain and consumer social media consumption habits are extremely fluid and fickle, hence it is of utmost importance to first research and listen to what’s being said online. If a strategy is based on wild guesses, or even calculated guesses, there is still a high chance (competitively disadvantageous) that there are blind spots that have been missed out. Look at the number of marketers with inactive twitter and facebook pages, as well as those who invested heavily in online advertising purely based on click rates.

To craft a successful Social Media Strategy, companies should at least incorporate the following elements:

1)      Research and understand the social media interests of your target market.
This can be done through engaging social media monitoring/analytical services (like us) that provide analytical insights derived from genuine conversations online. Guesstimates are just not good enough. Companies may also complement this research with surveys, focus groups or their CRM analysis.

2)      Find out where the conversations are taking place.
Gear your strategy to either be part of the community they are involved in, or provide a platform for your target market. Be seen in the right place at the right time. Establish a presence to cultivate a top of mind awareness when purchase decisions are being made.

3)      Create content, organize activities and generate conversations that align with your target market’s interests
Based on observations of key conversation topics, create content and start conversations that genuinely value add to your prospects. Be a friend to them and provide them support and advice. Allow them to be the first to hear about breaking news and see how it quickly spreads in a viral manner. The quickest way to lose their trust and cause them to screen out your messages is to blindly push ‘buy-me-now’ messages. Engage and interest them, not alienate them.

4)      Measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and refine them
Social Media campaigns are visible and much more measurable than PR/mass media strategies that rely on recall ability/no. of news clippings as ROI metrics. Measure and prove the ROI of your strategies to the stakeholders who control the purse strings. Make feedback a continuous, reinforcing loop that constantly enhances your strategies.

Well, I could easily go on and on about each point above and many other pointers, but I wanted to keep it succinct and digestible. To reiterate, planning is key in creating an effective social media strategy and listening is the cornerstone, the essential step that needs to be taken. As the saying goes, ‘if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail’.