May 24, 2011
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If you can't spare anyone on your staff to be a full-time social media guru, but you want to engage directly with customers and partners, you'll need to find a switch-hitter to provide a public face for your company while still toiling behind the scenes.
Here are the questions you need to answer:
1. Who are the right people to represent my company in social media?
Scott Albro, CEO of Focus.com, a B2B social network, recommends you select the people who are truly thought leaders inside your company. "A lot of people think it's the marketing department," Albro says, "but typically, it's not. It may be someone who is deeply embedded in operations or a specialist in one area."
Ideally, your designated mouthpieces love having conversations with customers and partners, but what if your employee has the expertise you need but would rather keep her nose to the grindstone?
Dustin Johnson, principal strategist for Ant's Eye View, a social media strategy consulting firm, spent four years at Microsoft helping to develop its communities. To get grumpy technical folk to participate in its burgeoning online interactions, he found that a little flattery worked well.
"These social channels do tend to feed egos," he says. "Tell the person, 'You're the best person we have, our customers appreciate your expertise, and the industry would appreciate your expertise.' If you know this is the right person or the only person, you need to understand what motivates them and play it up."
Temperament is important, as well, Johnson says. Your social media designees will need thick skins to weather the inevitable snipes and flames of online interaction.
2. What are my goals?
Asking your employees to spend company time in social media production without a clear understanding of what you want them to achieve can end up wasting time and money, says Lynn Hunsaker, head of ClearAction Customer Experience Optimization.
"Communicate to your employees really clearly what you're trying to achieve with your social media, such as finding leads you can call on the phone or getting customers to download information," she advises.
Johnson says, "If the targets you set are too general, you will never be able to measure them. If they're too specific, you won't get the best out of the individual." You must set productivity targets. This could be a certain number of posts to get out, a certain number of posts on Facebook, a number of responses in a discussion forum, or acquiring a volume of Twitter followers.
You should revisit these targets regularly, and revise them if it makes sense.
3. What's the right cadence?
Says Focus.com's Albro, "When an organization asks an employee to be the man on Twitter or the woman on Facebook, typically what happens is, that person gets very excited. They do a great job for about two weeks, and then business calls."
Most experts advise setting aside a specific time period at the beginning or end of the day to handle social media. Depending on your company's goals, your employees may need to multitask during the day.
"Maybe you have a Twitter feed running in the background, so you can hop in and respond or engage in a conversation without that being too time intensive," suggests social media consultant Paul Chaney. "It all depends on the activity." Writing one blog post a week may be more labor-intensive than tweeting or interacting on your Facebook wall.
On the other hand, Facebook can turn into an obsession that distracts employees from other essential work. Dealing with this is basic, old-school management, according to Albro.
"Tell the person, 'We love what you're doing on Twitter or your personal blog, but these other business objectives take priority right now,'" Albro advises. "As an employee, you can't come back to me and say, 'I didn't get this done because I was writing this blog post.'"
4. How will I decide if they're doing a good job?
This can be challenging, because the world of social media is so fluid, Johnson says. "Conversations ebb and flow. You're not working on a production line. You'll have periods of time when the conversation will explode, and you want that person to be active."
The key, he says is clear communication between you and your employees. Monitoring tools can help you keep track of social media performance goals like number of posts or cadence of tweets. Social media "listening tools" range from industrial-strength to free. Choose one that's easy to use and will let you monitor the platforms you've chosen.
5. Can I let go?
All our experts emphasized that social media conversations need to be spontaneous and personal. Micro-managing your employees as they participate will kill their spirit and make them sound phony. Once you've answered the first four questions, you've got to loosen the reins.
Says Johnson, "There's no kiddy pool. You have to have faith that whoever jumps in is ready to swim."
Image credit: Wili_hybrid
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Ivan Walsh 1 year 0 months and 6 days ago
Don't choose someone with a degree in traditional marketing. They'll try to shoehorn social media into ye olde worlde business models. Doesn't work!