Implementing Your Company’s Social Media Program
As a provider of online business solutions, it should come as no surprise that we recognize the importance of building an online presence for your company. Integral to that growth is the integration of Social Media into your website. However, in the same way we feel that customization is the key to any successful website design—no cookie cutters here—so, too, is it important to approach social media on a client-by-client basis.
We are keen advocates of socializing your online presence, but social media isn’t simply another flashy piece of functionality we can build into your website. Social media enables people to share information that’s relevant to them. And it’s a means to making your company or your brand more ‘transparent’ to your customers.
Engaging your company in the realm of social media necessitates an ongoing commitment and, quite often, a cultural change within an organization. A Facebook page with no posts, or a blog comment that goes unanswered, is as beneficial as a beautiful storefront that’s never open.
Different companies require varying degrees of social media engagement depending on how they communicate with their customers, and how their customers relate to the brand. Other contributing factors include in-house resources and focus; for example, who is going to be dedicated to managing the program, where is the content coming from, and what are the expectations or goals in terms of creating this social media audience?
We recently spent time with the team from Tweedsmuir Park Lodge. Our goal was to develop an achievable social media strategy that was going to support the marketing efforts of the Lodge and become an integral part of the day-to-day routine. The Tweedsmuir Park Lodge experiences are truly spectacular and not something many people get a chance to experience, so sharing these experiences through social media is a great opportunity.
In an effort to build a keen following of the Lodge and the experiences in and around Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, we needed to bring on board those who spend time with the guests and share in the adventures unique to TPL, not just ‘the marketing department.’ We encouraged Lodge managers, the chef, and the guiding staff to get involved, in addition to the management team. Some members of that group had no previous experience with social media. In addition to that, several members lack consistent computer access, so we made others responsible for tracking down the ‘stories’ from the river guides, for example, and sharing on their behalf.
As for their social media ‘toolkit’ we decided to focus primarily on Facebook and Twitter, already integrated into their website, and make an effort to blog regularly to engage existing TPL customers and appeal to new ones. We shared a few tips and provided some direction as to which tools to use as well: If it’s a quick update, simply tweet. If you have a couple of sentences with an image relating to a very current event, a Facebook post is the way to go. If you have a more descriptive experience to share, more like an article or journal entry, blog it. You may do all three, or sometimes just one.
For example, say a group spotted 3 bear cubs for the first time:
- Tweet: ‘3 bear cubs spotted today on Atnarko River Float Trip—amazing!’
- FB: Elaborate with ‘Here are a couple of photos of the bear cubs observed this morning on the Atnarko River just a kilometre from Tweedsmuir Park Lodge. Our group of visitors from Arkansas were absolutely thrilled!’
- Blog: (next day or so even) Few paragraphs storytelling the whole day + include link to Flickr set of trip photos. (Then go back to FB and post a link to the blog with a ‘New pics from Tuesday’s exciting trip on the Atnarko with the grizzly cubs in our Lodge Blog (link).’
It’s now been a few weeks since we walked through the ‘how to’ with the Tweedsmuir Park Lodge team, and the results are fantastic. The blogs are feeding the ‘Latest News’ updates to the homepage of the website and keeping content new and interesting, while the Facebook page is updated several times per week and is generating comments, and Tweets continue. We’re already starting to see an increase of views of the Facebook page, particularly when posts are made, and will be measuring the number of visitors who are following links from social media channels back to the Tweedsmuir Park Lodge website.
If your company has yet to optimize your online presence through social media, we’d be happy to strategize about how to get started.
Thanks for these tips. Social media can be so vast, thanks for breaking it down and making it less intimidating.
Thanks for the tips on how to link it all together and create a meaningful web social marketing presence. I really enjoy social media when it is done right as you are suggesting and really hate it when you simply get bombarded with one meaningless update after another.
Thanks for the great tips Gill - I'll be certainly implementing them.
Julie
PS - Tweedsmuir Park Lodge's blog are great.
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