What is a social network? Take a look at the video below
These strategies can also be used for larger events and organisations such as the 34th International Geological Congress (IGC). This congress is the leading global forum for Earth sciences. This forum is an event which facilitiates international geoscientific collaboration and development standards. Through wikis the IGC will be able to attract and faciliatate communication between IGC, deleagates and students
The strategy is to integrate social media into IGC marketing and communications plans. It’s important for the organization to understand that testing and experimentation is crucial.
The 3 steps of implementing the strategies are:
1) Determine goals and objective
It is important to understand your social media goals and objectives and how they tie into your overall company goals.
2) Research , Research and Research
Develop a list of social media sites where you can potentially engage with people. The list will most likely start off with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a few select blogs and forums. Check out each of the social media sites on your list and do additional research to determine relevancy by searching for your brand name, your competitors, and your target keywords. Listen to what’s out there, identify, and understand your target audience.
3) Measure Results
Next tie into the goals and objectives of your social media strategy.
- Improve brand presence across social channels—The measurement goal here is an increase in the number of followers on Twitter, number of fans on Facebook, number of comments, number of times your brand is mentioned in blogs and forums and so on.
- Increase positive sentiment about your brand—The goal here is to convert the number of positive mentions while taking note of negative mentions. Has the ratio of positive to negative comments improved? With the good comes the bad in social media. Get used to it!
- Develop relationships for future partnership opportunities—This goal is to keep track of those with whom you’ve connected. For example, if you met a potential speaker for your webinar, include that person into your digital Rolodex. If a vendor contacts you through your blog, capture that lead and take note.
- Increase traffic to your website—Keep track of visitors to your website who come from each of your social media sites. If you’re promoting an event using social media, consider using a unique code to track the campaign.
Conclusion
Social media strategies will vary for each business and for each industry. However, one thing is clear: social media needs to have “all hands on deck” in order to be successfully integrated into your company’s goals and objectives.
In general, I view social media as a strategy, not a tactic. I consider the social media platforms like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as tactics that tie into the social media strategy. In other words, outline your social media strategy and support your strategy with tactics. Without a carefully thought-out plan, you’ll eventually be overwhelmed with social media and even worse, get burnt out by it.
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Hi,
Great post! I absolutely agree that social media can be very overwhelming for companies. Without adequate research and planning, it’s very easy for some social media strategies to ‘flop’!
Thanks for an interesting read!
Nikki
http://nikki346.wordpress.com
I do agree with you that without adequate research and planning ,it is easy to “flop”
I like your post! I agree that every company will have a separate social media strategy, as all businesses are different! And I also like how a very large portion of your strategy revolves around studying, researching, and measuring the results of your actions and others in social media! I think studying and refining from results is very important and should be considered by all businesses!
Interesting post; I agree with you and David that every company has a separate social media strategy which is depending on their goals. You have covered most of the important strategies for implementing social media and l just would like to add to your list understanding the audience level of knowledge and interest which is very important strategy for leading organizations to the success.
HI muath, that is a good strategy as well. Thanks for sharing