SEARCH CLINIC

1. Plan your social media strategy for 2010.
Set your 2010 social media goals. Then map out the projects that you’ll need to undertake to achieve your goals. Throughout this process, you will need to start listening to determine which online communities are most important to your business. Your observations will help guide your decisions on how to engage each community most effectively.

2. Offer exceptional products and services.
Social media is simply another tool. If your products and services aren’t great, it’ll be an uphill battle to win. You’ll find yourself firefighting against a tide of negative comments. In social media, you can’t buy reach. You can’t buy market share. You can’t buy advocacy and customer evangelists.

If you want to win, create exceptional products and services that add value and delight customers. That is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get people talking positively about your brand!

3. Focus.
Prioritize to focus your time and energy on the social networks that really matter. Don’t try to be everywhere, do everything and respond to every single discussion – instead, focus on the discussions that will influence other conversations for maximum impact.

4. Create synergy to amplify your marketing messages.
Social media participants are getting savvier by the second. Treat consumers with respect and add value to the communities that you play in. When you add value, your messages will be shared. Take stock of how relevant communities are interconnected, and build your strategy to amplify communication and marketing efforts.

As you contribute content and participate in conversations, link all the disparate sites together to optimize your results.

5. Build your brand using location based social networks.
In 2010, expect to see location based social networks take off, as more customers access the mobile web through their smartphones. This will present a major opportunity for retailers to make their mark on the ‘local’ social web to promote and engage conversations about their brands online.

Smart businesses will get on the bandwagon first with innovative promotions which will not only capture the attention of community members but also the media.

6. Allocate a budget for social media.
Take a step back and rethink how participating in social media will be funded in your organisation. Look at your total mix of marketing spend within traditional activities such as advertising, PR and lead generation. Is social media currently an integrated part of your existing campaigns? Or does it make more sense to bypass the ‘traditional’ marketing outlets and create a separate social media programme? Will you be creating content internally or using external resources and agencies to produce high-quality, engaging content?

7. Reach within your organisation for social networking talent.
As tempting as it is to hire new social marketing specialists to drive and influence online conversations about your brand, don’t overlook the talent that already exists within your company – people who are already in your organisation who are passionate about your product, services and culture.