Newsstand

July 11, 2011
Social Media Management [DMA11]

There are so many social media marketing outlets today that a whole new industry was bound to spring up to handle them. Social media management is the strategy companies employ to manage multiple social media platforms. Perhaps you’ve done all the legwork to get your company, product or service on all the proper social media outlets—you’ve got fans “liking” you on Facebook, the Twitter account is chirping away, LinkedIn has a great looking professional profile and YouTube has a video even Hollywood would be proud to claim. So what is there to manage?

First, you need to make sure the message is consistent across all of your social media accounts. You can’t say one thing on Facebook and a different thing on Twitter or your audience might get confused and start to distrust you. Then, if you’ve done a good job of developing your strategy, you need to manage the sheer volume of responses. On the other hand, if you’ve done a lousy job of strategizing and nobody is responding, you need to manage that, too, and make adjustments quickly!

If the message is consistent, is it in compliance? Do you know the current marketing best practices across channels? Are you violating any privacy, spam, legal or industry regulations? Even if you’re doing everything right, the very social nature of the medium might have outsiders creating havoc for you. It may not be as blatant as putting up an entire fake web site, but even somebody uploading a pornographic photo to your Facebook page or posting a profanity-laced response to your blog could damage the reputation you’re working so hard to build.

What are you doing with any responses you might get? You need to remember to keep the social aspect in social marketing. That might mean consumers are expecting a response or reaction from you when they take a certain action. Do you have enough data and a response system in place to personalize and customize a response?

How you choose to manage multiple social media platforms can vary from the simple to the complex. At the very least, one person within the company should be responsible for checking the social media outlets on a regular basis to monitor responses and make updates. The next step might be to assign individuals to each platform—someone to manage the Facebook account, someone to manage the Twitter account, and so on. At the top of this ladder is SMMS—Social Media Management Systems. These include everything from web sites to sophisticated software programs that help manage social media.

Over 10,000 attendees will be learning about the latest in social media and integrated marketing at this year’s DMA2011 Conference and Exhibition Oct 1-6 in Boston—the global event for real-time marketers. Social media isn’t something you can just “do” and walk away from, it’s a commitment to be engaged and involved in building a long-term relationship with prospects and customers.

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