Google is paying more and more attention to fresh content, reader engagement, and social sharing. These days, social media marketing (including blogging) equals SEO. Can you afford to do without it?
If you’re serious about taking your organization into social media marketing, I’ve got a simple six-step roadmap that will get you well on your way.
Read part one of this series with steps 1, 2, and 3 right here.
Step Four: Hiring a Social Media Brand Manager
A social media brand manager is a full-time, salaried position in your organization. Obviously, whether or not you can budget for this position depends on the size of your company.
Responsibilities of the Social Media Brand Manager
- Managing the social media committee, reporting directly to the executive team.
- Setting up metrics and automation tools.
- Working with top-level management in each department involved in the social media program.
- Tracking followers, promo code redemptions, white-paper downloads, video views.
- Monitoring all social media portals and then reporting all news related to each department accordingly, and create an appropriate response.
As you can see, this is actually a necessary position, if you’re truly committed to having an effective and profitable social media presence online.
Step Five: Pick the Appropriate Portals
I recommend Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, and Google+. They all have a place in your initial, right out-of-the-gate social media initiative. Please consider all of them in your initial push.
Step Six: Productivity
There are huge concerns around employee productivity and social media. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times from big corporate execs:
“I don’t want employees spending all day on Twitter or Facebook.”
But studies have shown that instead of hindering productivity, actively using social media during the work day can enhance it! After all, no one can be productive 100 percent of the time, without a break. Authorized access to social media gives your employees a way to share their expertise, find out how others might be doing it better, get up to speed on new developments in their fields, and engage with the group of people that they hold knowledgeable in their own fields.
The big bonus: it will help them to stay more excited about what they do every day.
If employees are going to be on Facebook and Twitter; YouTube and LinkedIn, we want to make sure they’re evangelizing your brand—not just talking about what they did over the weekend.
I’ll bet you never expected one of the benefits of a social media venture would be an increase in business creativity! Be prepared; it’s actually going to increase excitement and enthusiasm when your people discover you are actually willing to trust them to evangelize for your company.
It Is a Huge Delegation of Trust …
Your employees will be thrilled to find you have set up a level of engagement allowingthem to source from other industry experts all around the world, to make their jobs more productive, more satisfying and more efficient.
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So these are the six key steps that are essentials for social media success. They are your road map. Following them should dispel any staff objections along with any remaining fear surrounding social media. You will successfully establish clear objectives, measurements, and value regarding social media, from the top of your company on down. Your big picture objectives and individual department goals will keep you on track and moving forward.
It’s my hope that with this clear and simple road map to guide you, you’ll take the leap of faith necessary to stay competitive in your own industry, become fearless in sharing what you do best, and allow your employees to grow, learn, and share what they do, to the total betterment of your organization.
Warm Regards,
Heather Lutze
Author, Internet Marketing Speaker, Trainer and Consultant
Other posts in this series:
- The Executives Guide to SEO – What You Need to Know Now
- SEO for the CEO: The Leadership Guide in 10 Simple Steps