We all use the analogy of learning to walk before we run. When it comes to the well planned and strategically aligned use of Social as a tool for organisations crawling effectively would be a better place to start.

The very human skills of listening, looking and being agile about how you change your tactics are the basics required for the effective use of Twitter, Facebook, linked-in, Instagram, and even Snap-chat and Meerkat (if you dare!)

One of the key things to establish from the outset is that social is not about broadcast, it is about engagement, it therefore requires a shift in the current, more traditional mindset of communication.

Social is not an island!

You need to start off with a good understanding of who you want to reach out to. This means establishing what your goals and therefore your proposition are going to be.

Social optimisation is all about the longer term vision reached via shorter term goals: audience satisfaction, engagement, and ultimately commercial success, none of which can happen without first building trust - a task best achieved by reaching out and having relevant conversations via your chosen Social platforms.

Yet it may seem to those who first dip a toe into Social that there is a lot of ‘noise’ and not much in-depth content, however, clever marketers know how to leverage quality insights and content. You need to cut through the noise with meaningful content that highlights what your organisation is about (without giving in to hard sales tactics!).

Strategically, Social is also dependent upon your “engagement maturity”. Are you best focusing on acquisition - drawing the audience towards your corporate brand and the opportunities for them if they engage?. Or are you in retention mode? Here using different tactics that typically have a longer burn.

And lets get that strategy straight. One that aligns with the longer term vision. A pilot campaign may be good to start and test effectiveness but its very different from an all encompassing, inclusive social strategy which is a goal effective, modern social brands have reached.

So why bother with Social then?

Customer/audience support can be delivered with relevance and advice using Social as an effective CRM tool. Furthermore Social enables the user to adopt a tone which is aligned with the corporate brand yet which is more accessible.

Co-creation is yet another benefit Social provides. Offbeat endorsement in short stabs on YouTube from Nike give them feedback in real-time on audience attitude and a steer to product design.

Leveraging peer to peer recommendation, being responsive through to building authority as well as engagement are all key goals which can be readily achieved.

Activating engagement

Responding to mentions, questions and commentary is important in the behaviour of any modern, social organisation. Being present and active builds trust - responding to most user commentary and their questions is key. And if this is during an acquisition phase the volume of enquiry should be manageable. Likewise Social can be a very effective tool, if handled properly, to iron out cultural differences during M&As

To move on and evolve a data-driven content strategy is the way forward.

Search queries and social conversations allow you to collect data on how your audience reacts and likes to engage. Consider this data to be feedback on how you're doing. Changing the frequency of updates, the format or language you use (are you asking questions, making bold statements, etc.), and even the type of media you're sharing will be the outcomes.

It is vital to fully grasp what the corporate message is, and that it matches the brand character from this feedback - surprise and delight?, inform and educate?, enlighten and inspire?, connect and empower?

Measurement - what are the best platforms and methodologies for you?

The biggest “expenditure” here is resource time.

The tools can be simple - Google analytics (yes, unbelievably thats still free!) is the place to start with traffic sources “referrals” and then once you have learnt a bit more about the audience path move on to using tools such as Woopra.

The pitfalls

One of the most common pitfalls is starting a Social campaign and then dwindling off into silence. Setting up the various platforms is simple enough, ensuring they are regularly updated is the main challenge.

This brings us to yet another pitfall, in a bid to keep the Social momentum going, some brands will talk about pretty much anything, some seem to believe that quantity rather than quality prevails, in effect, the focus needs to be on good quality in balanced, regular quantities.

So who are the benchmarks?

Great examples of responsive social brands who aren’t afraid of “losing control”-

• Old spice
• Rolls Royce
• Ronseal
• Nike

And others who weave a magical spell with a well constructed mix of blogging, knowledge sharing and social –

• Nutmeg
• Barclays
• Red Bull