Today's Web-Strategy post by Jeremiah Owyang really struck a chord with me. In it he reflects on the dramatic shift by marketers towards excessive use of micro tools. While these tools, aka Twitter, are fantastic for broadcasting a quick message, creating momentary awareness, searching for trending topics and sharing instantaneous opinions, they do not provide depth. As each new social platform hits the market, we race toward it and test its use. But, is our usage across social media platforms and across all marketing outlets balanced?
I'm a big fan of having a social media plan. In defining the plan, a company should be thinking about how each of the various social platforms works, the audience they reach and how they fulfill the company's business goals. What do I mean about how they work? I mean what kind of content can be shared? Is it brief? Is it meaningful? Does it fulfill a customer need? How long will your content reside on the platform and be visible? In most cases your content is available on the platform indefinitely. The challenge is in how many customers actually see it.
How about your audience. Do you know which social platforms your customers are using to both share and seek content? If they are not on Facebook (just for the sake of argument), then why are you? A social strategy .that assumes a need to be on the every platform, is not a well thought out strategy. Every companay needs to think about who their customers are and the kind of information they need to consume. C-level execs want overviews with key value propositions. Technologists want the gory details. Business leaders want to understand market trends and know what industry influencers are saying. Seekers of business solutions want information and education.
It takes a balance of both online and offline marketing to fulfill customer needs. It takes an understanding of customer need and the role of different platforms to communicate effectively. Jonathan Owyang provides great guidance in his blog as to relevant platforms, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Check out his thoughts and think about how the platforms he references can provide balance to your social media strategy.
What's your perspective?
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