Preparing A Brand for Social Engagement

Image by luc legay via Flickr

As an individual that's worked with a variety of brands, the big, the small, the new, and the established, it's been an interesting journey watching their interpretations of social engagement as a part of their marketing efforts. Sometimes I find it frustrating when I hear that companies out there have been "swindled" by individuals claiming a particular status, call them pros, experts, whatever you like, and based on their performance, proving otherwise. It is these brands that are the most hesitant to make that transition once someone qualified has attached themselves to the brand in order to help their online visibility and relationships building efforts.

Quite honestly I don't doubt them for being wary, especially if funds had been sunk into previous efforts with little to nothing to show for it. On the other than we have brands that are so gung-ho about jumping in they expect immediate results and want hundreds of thousands of people to connect with them in the first week. It is these individuals that have a harder understanding of the fact that social engagement is not the saving grace strategy they had planned for. Again the disillusion has somehow soured their experiences and they too are hesitant to try.

The Plan

So here are a few tips that I suggest when introducing or reintroducing a brand to the possibilities of social engagement:

• Explain to them the broad concept of social engagement, a better understanding might be required before full commitment is undertaken. Better to understand the terrain before you go leaping.
• Prepare yourself with case studies of similar brands in the industry that have experienced success. Anyone worth their weight should at least have the professional courtesy to explore these options for the client prior to making claims.
• Explore the the tools together to find which are more suitable. Twitter is not for every strategy, sometimes it's Facebook, sometimes they need a private community that can be established with a Ning group, or perhaps multimedia is more appropriate via a podcast or videos on YouTube. Do not be afraid to share your thoughts on the matter, but don't try to fit a square peg into a circular cut out.
• Finally, share with them flows of communication and how their efforts can best be pushed through the right channels for maximum visibility. For example, if they do a blog post on their site, show them how it can pushed to Facebook, Twitter, RSS, FriendFeed, or any other network they may be a part of. Showing how networks relate increases the chance that some one will come across their content.
• Finally, help them monitor the metrics and analytics for their efforts. The number of friends and followers is the poorest of metrics to report, and is a good indication the person you are working with is not keen enough to know other methods. Help them understand what links were clicked via URL shorteners, help them find out where people were clicking in from, direct them to their engagement stats (messages vs responses). There are a number of other things to measure depending on what you use, but helping them understand their efforts increases the success of their marketing because together the two of you can navigate the waters and change course accordingly.

This is just a summation of some of the things you can do in order to help any brand add a social engagement component to their existing strategies. Remember it's about working together, not a set it and forget it mentality.