Integrating social media and your marketing strategy

1. Become involved in all the social media channels you are interested in, and definitely what your competitors are in.
2. Ideas for you include:

• www.youtube.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.twitter.com
• www.orble.com
• www.blogger.com
• www.wordpress.org
• www.linkedin.com
• www.bebo.com

 Based on my experience, I have found most companies to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – effectively.

 Sociallywirednow FORECAST: Our desktops (home and office) will have access to Twitter and it will over time replace the popular SMS/Text Message.

Remember: Software, technology is updated every day to improve its useability and functionality. Most social media sites run off open source software where additional programs are being developed to run within the further providing functions to advertise and increase word of mouth type of marketing activities.
To analyse the effectiveness of your social media campaign, you must first identify what it is exactly that you want to achieve in performing such an action.
 Some ideas include:

• More referrals from clients using the social media platform
• More demographically dispersed fan bases
• A highly active social media space – lots of comments, tags, images, etc

What would I include in a social media marketing strategy?
• Brainstorm ideas on what you want your audience to receive; what image you want to portray; what is your niche’?
• Promotion
   o What channel(s) will you use to get the word out to clients?
• Advertising
   o What media channels will you use?
   o Why do you want to use these channels?
   o How often do you want to reach out to your clients on this channel?
   o Why this mix and not some other?
• Content
   o What information are you going to use to reach out to clients?
   o (For example, quotes, what you are doing, what’s going on in store?)
   o How are you going to record your information that is being used on each channel? (Matrix?)
   o What back up will you instigate to protect data loss?
   o What is your disaster recovery plan for online media?

Considerations taken from the marketing strategy:
• Have you identified low-cost methods to achieve maximum results from your promotional budget?
• What image do you currently convey, or would like in future?
• How much will you allocate on each items listed above?
   o Before startup? (These numbers will go into your startup budget)
   o Ongoing? (These numbers will go into your operating plan budget.)
• Pricing
   o Explain your method or methods of setting prices.
For most small businesses, having a lower price is not a general rule. It decreases your chances of a healthy profit margin; clients may not care as much about price as you think; and large competitors can under price you anyway. Usually you will do better to have average prices and compete on quality and service.
   o Does your pricing strategy fit with others from competitive analysis?
   o Compare prices with competitors. Are they higher, lower, same? Why?
   o How important is price as a competitive factor?
   o Do your intended clients make their purchase decision based on price, loyalty, quality?
   o What is your client service and credit policy?

Product
When selecting an appropriate social media channel, scrutinizing to obtain a solution is most definitely required – and rewarded. When identifying stakeholders ensure you consider: yourself, social media platform(s), both current and potential clients.

List all major products/and services in your funnel:
• Describe important features required. What makes it important?
• Describe all benefits and what it provides your client?
• Are your clients using this social media space?
• How easy will it be for you to maintain?
Note any differences between features and benefits.


Clients
Identify your targeted clients:
• Describe their characteristics
• Geographic locations (demographics)
The description will be completely different depending on whether you plan to sell to other businesses or directly to consumers. If you sell a consumer product, but sell it through a channel of distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, you must carefully analyse both the end consumer and the middleman businesses to which you sell.

If you have more than one client group:
• Identify all important groups in a prioritized list;
• For each client group, construct a demographic profile:
     o Age;
     o Gender;
     o Location;
     o Income level;
     o Social class and occupation;
     o Education;
     o Other (specific to your industry), and
     o Other (specific to your industry).

For business clients demographic factors may include:
• Industry (or portion of an industry);
• Location;
• Size of firm;
• Quality, technology, and price preferences;
• Other (specific to your industry), and
• Other (specific to your industry).

Competition
What products and companies are in competition with you (direct and indirect)?
• List your major competitors (names and addresses);
• Do these competitors compete across the board or only for certain products, certain clients, or certain locations?
• What social media platforms are your competitors using?
• If they are using social media platforms, are you able to gauge its success?
• Do you have indirect competitors? (For example, video rental stores compete with theaters), and
• How do your products or services compare with competition?

Use a Competitive Analysis table to compare your company with two important competitors. The first column are key competitive factors. Since these vary from one industry to another, you may want to customize the list of factors.

The column labeled Me, state what you honestly think your client would say. Even better, reach out to one, and ask? You are able to survey your clients through online surveys (check out www.surveymonkey.com)
Identify if you believe this to be a strength or weakness for your business. Often it is hard to analyze our own weaknesses. Be brutally honest here. Furthermore, ask a disinterested stranger to assess you. This task is a real eye-opener!

Analyse each major competitor, using a few short words state the comparison.
In the final column, estimate the importance of each competitive factor to the client. 1 = critical; 5 = not very important.

               Factor   Me   Strength  Weakness  Competitor A  Competitor B  Importance to Client
Products
Price
Quality
Selection
Service
Reliability
Stability
Expertise
Company Reputation
Location
Appearance
Sales Method
Credit Policies
Advertising
Image


Analyse findings/results and write a short paragraph stating competitive advantages and disadvantages.