The Power of an Integrated Social Media Strategy
Author: Daniel Burrus
With so many social media options from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube to LinkedIn its no wonder so many companies have a disjointed social media strategyor no strategy at all. All their online entities, including their website and blog, are separate from each other. As a result, they may have lots of Twitter followers or Facebook fans, but not as much web traffic and not as many sales as theyd like. The key is to bring all your online and social media efforts together into one integrated strategy that positively impacts your companys bottom line. For example, your company likely has a website, and you may even have a blog. But is your blog connected to your website? Is all your blog traffic counting as website traffic? If you also have a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page, are your followers and fans able to easily link to your website? If you have how-to or product videos on YouTube, have you created a YouTube channel that also links to your blog/website/Facebook/Twitter and all your other social media accounts? For most companies, the answer is no. Remember that search engines rank your website in many ways. Part of the equation is how much traffic your website receives as well as the keywords you use. If all those keywords are also in your blog and in your social media posts, why not have everything integrated in one place rather than scattered throughout the internet? If your company is in 20 different places that are not connected, then youre losing out on some serious website traffic. Its always better to multiply your efforts rather than divide them. So instead of thinking, Our company has a fan page, someone is monitoring Twitter, we have a website, our marketing person is doing blogs, and our sales manager put some of our sales presentations on SlideShare, you need to think, All our online and social media activities are linked together to support our brand so people arent just seeing our fan page or one of our videos on YouTube; theyre seeing everything we do because its all integrated. When you adopt an integrated strategy, people will find you easier and your customer base will grow. Get It Together Whether youre just starting your social media activities or have multiple separate accounts, joining everything together is quite simple. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind. Start with your philosophy rather than your technology. The first step is to acknowledge that you need an integrated strategy that brings everything together. While you may see the value of monitoring Twitter and having a Facebook fan page, imagine how much stronger your brand would be if all your followers and fans could easily find your site without having to search for it. So you want all your social media activities to be integrated with your current website rather than having them off being their own thing. Keep your brand consistent. The brand you have on your website and the brand you use in your traditional marketing efforts also needs to be reflected in your social media activities. This includes your logo, tagline, color scheme, and images. For example, both Twitter and YouTube enable you to customize your pages background with your logo, contact information, and links to your blog, website, and other social media platforms. Your Facebook fan page can also display your logo and live links. The same goes for many other social media options. Bring elements of your current brand into as many places as possible. Create an integrated strategy for your message too. Your message needs to have as much consistency as your sites look and feel. Therefore, create a strategy for the key messages you want to get out. Rather than thinking, Heres what we do on Facebook and these are the kinds of posts we write on Twitter, create a core message for all your social media activities. What is the information you want to convey so you and all of your employees post messages that help the company achieve its goals? Go everywhere. Dont limit your company to only being active on the most popular social media sites. Go on all of them. For example, if you have a video to post, why just post it on YouTube? There are many video sharing sites available. The same is true for the business networking sites, the photo sharing sites, the relationship building sites, etc. Remember, the more youre out there, the more you establish yourself in your niche. Its all about broadening your reach. And the good news is that most, if not all, of the social media sites are free and are becoming more and more business friendly every day. Use technology to your advantage. Yes, going to multiple social media sites to do regular postings can be time consuming. Therefore, let technology do the work for you. Programs such as ping.fm enable you to post one message on many different sites with the click of a single button. So theres no need to sign in to multiple accounts and retype the same posting repeatedly. With todays technology, you can put your posts in one or two places and broadcast them out to all your social media sites. Integration is the Key These days, businesses are embracing and using social media for everything from customer service to branding. Because social media is transparent (we can see whats happening in real time), open (anyone can join), dynamic (its a two-way communication), and organic (it grows without advertising), companies receive great rewards for little investment. As a result, companies and customers can now engage with each other as they have relevant conversations and build communities of interest that benefit both parties. The key to maximizing the benefits of social media is to take an integrated approach. After all, if someone likes your companys blogs or tweets, chances are theyll like your products. But if you dont have an integrated social media approach, your potential customers may never know of everything you have to offer. Additionally, all the tools to integrate your efforts are there. You simply have to use them. And as the various social media sites evolve and grow, theyll add more features that benefit businesses. Therefore, once your accounts are set up, keep checking back to make sure youre taking advantage of everything they have to offer. The bottom line is that integration of your online and social media efforts is the key to lasting success. Harness the power of integration and watch your companys sales and online ranking grow.About the Author:
Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world's leading technology forecasters and strategists. He is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients better understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities. The New York Times has referred to him as one of America's top three business "gurus" in the highest demand as a speaker. For more information on the services and products offered by Daniel Burrus, please visit:
http://www.burrus.com or call 1-262-367-0949
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