1. Commitment
High level corporate commitment is a key element of a successful strategy development and implementation. Such commitment is no guarantee of itself that everything will be done well, or even that there will be no major problems encountered. But in the absence of such commitment, even the best articulated strategy may well be doomed to failure.
2. Culture
Conversations about social media in business typically start with questions about tools. “Should we have a Facebook page?” “Should we be on Twitter?” “Should we have a blog and if so how do we go about that?” These are perfectly reasonable questions. But from a strategic point of view trying to answer those questions in a vacuum is usually unproductive.Before any decisions are made about social media platforms or tools, there needs to be a serious discussion about company objectives and social media strategy. And, of course, about company culture. Because a social media strategy that doesn’t fit with company culture, or is not synchronized with a strategy to change company culture if that proves necessary for success, is bound to fail.
It is also clear, from case studies and from anecdotes shared by social media practitioners, that the toughest challenge with social media or social media implementation is often not about platforms or tools or even about budgets, but about culture. At the risk of over-simplification, what is meant here by corporate culture is what is sometimes described in terms of “the way we do things around here”. Of course, “the way we do things” will often be
3. Market
A market scan is a next step in developing a social media strategy. Just as for any business strategy, we need to know who our customers, prospects and other stakeholders are. For a social media strategy we also need to build a picture of their actual or likely online behaviour and especially whether and how they use social networks. And as with any market investigation, it is probably a good idea to put prejudices aside and discover what facts we can about these issues.
For example, many mature age business executives might not be themselves active on social networks, and assume that social networking is not relevant for their business because they are not catering to a young demographic.
4.Goal
Many companies approach social media initially as a way to get their message out more effectively and see social media as offering, in effect, a bigger megaphone. In one way it does, but there is a lot more to the picture than that, and it is essential to get very clear about the company’s objectives and goals in setting up a social media strategy. Part of that process is to keep in clear focus the fact that social media is interactive.
5.Resources
One of the most business-unfriendly myths about social media is that it is all free. “Won’t cost anything”. Just because it does not cost anything to sign up for a Twitter account, or Facebook or many other social media services does not mean by any means that there will be no cost. The reality is that it will cost! But what one can reasonably expect is that, with a well-developed and well-executed social media strategy, one will get more value for the outlay, more impact for the spending than by depending solely on traditional ways of promoting and positioning the company. At the very least one will have to incur the cost in terms of the time spent by staff on building the company presence on the social web, responding to feedback and so on. And it gets into social media more intensively there are other costs that can reasonably be incurred.
It is also worth bearing in mind that there is a cost involved in not doing anything. If one accepts that social media has changed the way one does business, then one will not have a problem in seeing that, by not taking strategic action, one can be effectively missing out on the profitability which is implicit in the new possibilities offered by social media, such as for building brand awareness, customer retention and acquisition, establishing or maintaining thought leadership, and improved internal communication and collaboration.
6.Listening
“Communication, whether inbound or outbound, is now powered by conversations, and the best communicators always start as the best listeners. And the best listeners are those who empathize while they are listening.” Brian Solis, Engage!
The engagement online happens where people listen, not where there is just someone with a megaphone telling the public to buy their stuff. Not that one has to be everywhere on the web, constantly listening. There are tools to help and the good news is that some of them like Google Alerts are free. So, one can experiment without a direct financial cost and start to learn what you really need to know and for which you might have to investigate some of the paid services currently proliferating.
7.Engaging
As Brian Solis put it succinctly, “Engage or die.” In his excellent introduction to social media, The Digital Handshake, social media specialist Paul Chaney suggests that there are two ways to engage with social media. “One is relatively more passive – joining a conversation that is already underway: the other is more proactive – “starting a conversation about your company, products and people”. As the author points out, it doesn’t have to be either/or illustration, one is probably more likely to attract people to their own functions if they have seen one attending and supporting theirs.
8.Technology.
A Facebook page might be ideal for some strategies and a non-productive time-sink for others, although given the vast number of people on Facebook we generally recommend to clients that they have some presence and engagement there.Not every expert will agree, but our view is that every company should consider having a blog (weblog), not just a traditional, static website, as part of its presence on the social web. There is also an international dimension. For example, if the company does business in China one would be wise to learn about Renren (formerly Xiaonei) and Baidu and not assume that knowing about and being findable on Facebook or Google is enough.
Similarly, if a company is doing business in Brazil, it would be smart to get up to speed on the LinkedIn site, very popular around the globe. But what would be a good basic list of platforms to consider for companies doing business exclusively or mainly in English-speaking countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia and India. A suggested starter list for consideration:
• Facebook page
• YouTube channel
• Corporate blog
9.Evaluation
We conclude that current and potential employees tend to perceive the mark of an employer organization in different ways. The two groups tend to value different attributes. Therefore, one can say that means that the results of the investigation of the employer brand potential worker participation cannot be generalized to current employees. To determine what makes an attractive employer brand for current employees, one must select the unique perspective of people in the organization. However, this requires some understanding of how the employment relationship can change an individual assessment of the brand or the employer’s organization.