Is your social media campaign running on auto pilot? Wake up and take charge.
You hired a social media agency like us to administer your company social media campaign. You are enthusiastic for the first couple of weeks and the posts are nicely ticking along and the 'likes' are steadily climbing. Soon you let it go on auto-pilot. The agency keeps posting and your campaign keeps moving. KRA fulfilled.
A social media campaign on auto pilot? What's the use?
The social media agency will post because they must, they are paid to do so. They will post interesting things and people will 'like' or 'comment' on them and the wheel will keep moving forward. But this completely misses the point. A social media campaign is a tool to bring your company closer to the target audience, it's not to put another agency in the middle to run on auto pilot.? If your company is not getting involved then they are missing something really valuable. An opportunity to interact with the true
stake holders of any business - the end customers.
Your social media agency knows your customers, but do you?
The agency gives your weekly reports and statistics and you smile at the upward trend and cursorily go over the comments.
Actually
its the agency's
front line staff who are getting to know your target audience, not you. They are hands on and posting and talking to your customers and other interested parties. They are gauging sentiment and interest levels. And no report can convey the same to you.? You have to experience it with involvement.
Emergencies are absolutely the wrong time to get involved in the campaign.
Its only when things go wrong that company managers rush to the social media platforms. Its to do some kind of damage control or to put their own point of view out there. But by then its too late. There is no connection. You haven't
being paying attention. Whatever you post might just make things worse. The time to connect with the target audience is before a crisis, not during or after.
Social media is not web design,
seo or PPC -
its experiential, up close and personal
You can safely hand over web design,
seo or
ppc to an agency and get good results with
minimum of interference. In
fact most agencies would prefer that. But with social media the opposite it true. Yes, you can hand over a campaign to a social media agency and get some results without any involvement but that is like asking your barber to cut your hair without a mirror. You really don't know what is going on.
Your company has to be involved.
Get involved. Monitor closely. Engage with the target audience personally. Here are a few questions to help your focus.
- How many of the top and middle management post every day or every few days on your social media page?
- How much time does management give to discuss social media issues with the agency? Are reports followed by detailed discussions?
- How often does the management team partner with the agency to create an initiative for the target audience like a contest, quiz or promotion?
- Can you say that you have the pulse of the target audience on your company social media channels?
In
conclusion I would say that a social media campaign is a terrible thing to waste. No other medium gets you so up close and personal with your target audience. And if you are not milking it for everything then that's a shame.
Cheers,
Ron
