Posted by: Jorden Beatty on June 8, 2012
Stay a while, and listen
3 steps to crafting your message for social media
Featuring NYC artist Paul Nassar, the video above (slightly NSFW: song lyrics) is a great visual representation for how social media management, at its core, can (and definitely should) function.
Alongside a stellar soundtrack, the video shows how great something can become when you invite an outside opinion, listen to that opinion and see how it fits with your goal and then adapt to make a message that is best for everyone.
It’s Good to Have Goals
Actually, it’s not only good to have goals – it’s absolutely crucial. Your first step to making your brand social should to ultimately be to define what results you want to see in the end. This should go way, way beyond the generic “increase sales” goal.
Are you looking for a larger community to interact with? Probably. Have you defined what target audience you want interaction from? Maybe. How about traffic? Are you aiming to get a certain amount of visitors per month from any specific channel? It’s a start.
When it comes to being successful in social media, goals are key. You have to have something to shoot for to be able to analyze whether or not you’ve been successful.
Share the Message
Once you’ve made your goals and have a good idea about what you want to say to your audience and where you want to say it, the easiest step of the process is actually, well, SAYING it.
Keep in mind that every social channel is different, and the same message will probably need to be presented in several different ways to get the point across in the fashion you mean it to, ensuring it is also appropriate for the channel you’re placing it on. You’ll know how it was received when you perform your reputation management.
“It’s not only good to have goals, it’s absolutely crucial.”
Pro-tip: turn off social-sharing features that link channels like Twitter’s “post every tweet to Facebook” feature. Not only does it look lazy (because it is), but when you use normal Twitter functions like #Hashtags and @replies, they won’t work or make sense on a channel like Facebook.
Take a few more minutes and make a customized post for each channel. You’ll come across as more professional, it’ll look cleaner, and in Facebook’s case even have more options like inserting a photo or customizing link descriptions.
(Some rumors claim that Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm also takes into account these third party tools and penalizes them with a lower potential reach when using them to post. Meaning, when you use a third-party tool to share an update, as opposed to using Facebook itself, your update gets a much smaller potential reach. While Facebook now claims this isn’t the case, we prefer to keep things organized and separate for each channel.)
Listen up: Monitor your audience reaction
The most interesting part (and important for reputation management) is actually watching your message go live and seeing the audience interact with it in real time. When they do, make sure you take careful note of what they are saying, be it positive, negative or neutral.
Much like Nassar displayed in his video, your future messaging will start to evolve into something completely new after you give your target audience the opportunity to take it in and add their own comments. Give it some time and before long you’ll know what’s working, what isn’t, and even come up with brand new ideas you might not have thought up before.
In the case of social media management, businesses can benefit from this logic in many ways by simply inviting their consumer base to join the conversation about their products and services. Not only does it give the consumer audience the opportunity to share their likes and dislikes, but it gives the brand insight about what their consumers need and want from its products.
In the end, everyone wins.
Read More: 5 Reasons Social Networking Is Here To Stay
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LGD Communications is a Miami-based full-service advertising, marketing, and branding agency, with over 20 years of expertise in both print and digital media. Contact President & Chief Creative Officer Len Dugow at len[at]lgdcom.com or (305) 576-9400 for a free consultation to learn how LGD Communications can develop and improve your business in our ever-evolving media-centric world.