Volume

I come across many business owners and managers who are still trying to grasp the value and use of social media within their organisations – everyone has a different point of view and level of understanding. I’ve used a simple analogy to help position social media in the marketing mix and how best to utilise and optimise your social media assets and resources

The analogy compares the adoption of social media with the evolution of the microwave. Like social media, many viewed the microwave with a degree of fear and distain. For years we’ve been baking, boiling, barbecuing, frying and grilling our food. Along comes a small box that vigorously shakes molecules to produce heat in super quick time. Not surprising many couldn’t get their heads around it.

In the last couple of decades the now humble microwave has revolutionised the food industry. Without microwaves there’d be no frozen or ready meals – an industry that’s estimated in the UK at over £2.5 billion a year.  But despite the microwave’s presence in our kitchens, we’re still baking, boiling, barbecuing, grilling and frying. We’re using our microwaves for convenient and quick gratification.

Just like the microwave, social media will become integral. It’s not going to dominate or dampen our appetite to communicate but it will impact the communications mix and where and how we use it.

If social media gives you the opportunity to broadcast and consume quick and convenient bursts of information. It can also complement the more traditional communication channels – say an integrated campaign. In the microwave analogy that’s the equivalent of cooking a meal – it’s a more involved and elaborate process with many more ingredients and a longer preparation time.

Hopefully this analogy helps put social media into context. Now we need to understand what social media assets you’ve actually got or could have.

Chances are you’ve an emerging social media presence – a presence you may or may not have control over or influence on. Do you know how many social media accounts and instances you have? Where they are? Who owns them? Are they run by the business? Or by employees, partners, journalists or analysts etc.? – All of whom effectively make up your social media real estate. How do these accounts and instances contribute? Do they have a positive or negative effect? Do they have any influence or value at all?

Potentially you don’t know the true extent of your social media real estate, meaning it may not be as effective or influential as you might think.

Your true social media real estate is made up of ‘official’, ‘unofficial’, ‘endorsed’ and other categories such as employee accounts and brand/product advocates. Categorising your accounts helps you to better measure, influence and improve the quality and value of your social assets.

A significant part of your real estate is made up of accounts and instances you don’t necessarily have control or influence over – journalists and analysts who write nice things about you, anonymous entities that post nasty things about you or partners and employees that broadcast inappropriately.

So how do you get a handle on your social media real estate? How do you gain the ability to influence it? How do you improve and optimise your best and most influential accounts and communities? How do you reduce dormant and inactive accounts, duplicate accounts and accounts that aren’t representative of your brand and visual identity? How much of a contribution do they really make towards your overall marketing, sales and communications activity?

You wouldn’t draw up a battle plan without knowing how many ships, soldiers and aircraft you had at your disposal. So how can you develop a digital and social media communications strategy without knowing what your social media assets are, whether they sit inside or outside the business?

Mapping your social real estate also helps you to establish compliance and capture best practice. You don’t want people stumbling upon social accounts and instances that aren’t reflective of your brand and identity or that contain silo’d and conflicting messaging and out of date content. In the social universe, it’s too easy to end up with myriad accounts, which confuse your audience and dilute your message.

Many businesses, particularly large global organisations have many, many accounts and instances all over the place. Monitoring, maintaining and regulating these is difficult, almost impossible. Mapping your real estate allows you to consolidate and optimise – shut down those accounts that are adding little value and focus on improving the ones that are or have the potential to. Align all your accounts in terms of naming convention, visual identity and tone of voice – ensure that the content is fresh and relevant that your accounts are complementary not conflicting.

Social-savvy organisations are also looking at the commercial aspects of social media and how they can leverage their social real estate to better effect – turning their social assets into a revenue platform, delivering promotions and offers via social channels and communities. One well known PC manufacturer is looking to incorporate social media into its marketing development funding by incentivising promotions via the major social networks owned by its channel partners and resellers. The breadth and scale of tactical offer-based promotions can be synchronised across multiple instances. Offers can be dynamically tailored based on results and responses – adjusted up or down depending upon the size and speed of response. In a numbers-driven world, if revenues were down in a particular area of the business or specific product, emphasis can be shifted from one to another almost instantaneously. This tactical approach can have a massive impact on revenue especially if the entire social real estate is being utilised.

Charities, not-for-profit or community organisations can also use mapping to meet more ‘social’-oriented objectives. For example, Reading’s ‘Year to Celebrate’ www.readingy2c.org initiative, in celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games is challenged with instilling civic pride in the town and participation in the many planned events running throughout the year. As well as the web site and social accounts set up, it will be reliant on the many accounts and instances created by residents, community organisations and businesses running events in 2012. The potential social media real estate becomes significant and by mapping all related social communities, the potential to participate is again significant.

Finally ‘Mapping’ should not be confused with ‘Listening’. Many of you may use listening tools to monitor conversations and sentiment however, that’s a little bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. By ‘mapping’ before you listen, you can potentially prevent social media incidents and accidents from happening. A mapped social media real estate is better controlled and regulated. Accounts are compliant and best practices leveraged. For more insight into mapping visit www.sociview.com