At this point it’s hard to determine if the sudden interest in “getting a social media strategy up and running” is based on the realization that it’s an inexpensive sales / marketing methodology, competitive pressure, or hard and fast examples of the dividends that it pays – but it’s probably a combination of the three - and that interest is real.

If the words “social media” have been said at your organization, here are some high-level considerations to keep in mind as this phenomenon continues to unfold, and brings you along with it.

Need help figuring out what social media means to your company? Contact us.

Step 1:  Acknowledge that you are either linked in or you are locked out. Every organization, including yours, currently has a social media strategy. The difference between companies is the extent to which they “know it” and “take charge of it”.  Whether you have consciously participated in any of the venues yourself, there is a strong likelihood (perhaps a 100% certainty) that your employees, your competitors, and your customers have.  One of your challenges as a marketing professional – the protector of your brand – is to determine if you will choose to extend your “jurisdiction” to social media platforms. Are you interested in how your company is positioned by your employees who participate on LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, and other platforms that are growing in popularity? Are you interested in what is said about your company in employee, customer, and/or competitor blogs and posts? If you are – then you may want to take a more pro-active interest in social media.

Action item: If you determine that you will test LinkedIn as a sales and marketing vehicle, and you have employees who are interested in using their own profiles as a way to promote your organization –  you may want to develop your corporate presence on LinkedIn. This may include giving your employees consistent, on-brand messaging to use, developing your own corporate group, participating in discussions – the list goes on.  Beware – you should probably set up some ground rules of engagement. You certainly don’t want to share confidential information, or make your company look uninformed, etc. You may want to take note of who is posing a question (is it a competitor?) before you decide to respond.

Step 2: Take ownership of online real estate before someone else builds their house on your lot. Consider putting a stake in the ground across the platforms, if you wish to influence your organization’s build-out of content. That “someone else” I am referring to could be anyone – your colleagues, different departments within your company, or your competitors who may be looking for ways to get search engine rankings against key words that are important to your company.  If you are a marketer, search engine management typically falls in your lap – and social media is definitely part of an SEO strategy. It’s certainly part of an “inbound” inquiry strategy.

Action item:  Is your company name or related keywords still available on FaceBook or Twitter? You should check. This is sort of like registering domain names.