I've been chatting to a few brand representatives lately and one of the most resounding questions I (surprisingly) get asked is "what is the bare minimum my company should be doing in the social space?"
It's an interesting question, and I usually answer it with the idea that any interaction is better than none at all. But I thought I might lay out some key thoughts about the issue for everyone to feast upon.
The first thing you can do is get online and have a look at the free tools available to you. Open a Facebook page, start a twitter account, post something to YouTube or Flickr. The reason for this is to get a basic understanding of the rules and possibilities of the online world. It's not until you start typing tweets that you realise there's a craft to communication in 140 characters. Similarly, you'll never know what a subscribing to a YouTube channel does until you give it a go.
So my first piece of advice is step out of the comfort zone and start getting your creative hands dirty in the cyber sandpit. Do all this under a pseudonym if it makes you feel at ease, but it's important to play around. Two hours playing on Facebook will teach you more than a 97 page guide.
The second tip is to understand the classification systems that social networks use.
Remember years ago when you needed new glasses and tried to look them up in the Yellow Pages. Nothing under "G" for glasses... Nothing under "S" for spectacles... Nothing under "E" for "eyewear"... Nothing under "L" for lenses...
20 minutes later you'll finally work out that unless you know "optometry" is the profession dealing with eyes, you could spend a lifetime digging through those giant yellow books.
This is an example of a failure of taxonomy, and the reason why Google is such a powerful search engine. Knowing the terms (or "keywords") that are required for anyone and everyone to find your content is critical to the success of content sharing across social networks.
I encourage people to include keywords wherever possible in the content they're creating. This will help improve your ranking on Google and make your content more accessible to a wider reach of targeted audiences.
If you're wondering what your keywords are, I suggest looking at the statistical information on your website (usually via your hosting package). If your hosting package doesn't included this, sign up to a free service like Google Analytics. It can perform the same data crunching.
Also, it's worth signing up for Google Alerts (another free service) that will let you know where people are talking about your company and alert you anytime your company name is found in a new post by the Google bots.
Twitter search and Twitter lists are also valuable insights. Search for your brand on Twitter and see what comes up. Alternatively, check out the lists your account has been added to (and more importantly the names of those lists). They might give you some keywords that could help extend your audience reach and relevancy.
Another good place is Social Mention, which can quickly break down keywords associated with your brand from sites across the social web. Like Google Alerts, it will give you an insight into all the places you're mentioned, but with more specific focus on social networks. It's also real-time, rather than just new content.
Another "minimum idea" is to create a publishing schedule that allows for reusable content. What I mean by this is using the strengths of the different platforms to develop an understanding of audience relevancy and engagement.
Think about how you communicate information to your audience. The time it takes to share ideas on Twitter or Facebook is much faster than via email or blog. Set up a timetable of frequency for posting information that allows popular content to be repurposed.
In practice, this would probably included sharing a lot of ideas on Twitter (around five a day). The three most popular tweets might then become three Facebook status updates. The two most popular status updates might then become blog articles, and the most popular blog article might then become a feature in your emailed newsletter.
This organic funnelling of information means you can ensure proven relevancy is maintained within your target audience as time commitments to social content increase. This model also encourages experimentation on a real-time platform like Twitter and seeing what sticks, then building from that popularity. It takes guesswork out of content for brands new to the social space and is something I'd recommend every workplace consider.
With these three approaches (get involved, know your keywords and an effective content publishing schedule) you should quickly make an impact on your bottom-line objectives...
Or if nothing else, extend the quality and quantity of your audience in the social space.
