All this talk about “engagement” and “social” and whatnot…why do you want to do this again?
We had a light-bulb moment a couple weeks back. In that 99.5% of the stuff that’s out there is being rammed down your throats — and, if you have your objectives in mind when you set out to do this SOCIAL stuff, you’ll be ahead of the game. In fact, you may not NEED to “do” social at all.
Enter the phrase “Objective-Oriented Marketing.”
It’s so good, we’ll probably trademark it. But enough about that, here’s how to apply it to what you’re doing right now — or, more accurately, what you want to be doing right now.
1. Come up with an objective. For Your Business. NOW.
This might be over-simplifying, but who cares? While it might be disingenuous to say that 99.5% of the businesses in the world don’t have objectives, it is highly possible that the project you are working on right now might not be tied to any business objectives.
Ever been part of a project that’s doomed to fail? One that will no doubt leave you and your colleagues spinning your wheels, feeling like you’re all that guy in the Dilbert cartoon? (Not Dilbert, but that other guy.)
CEOs know exactly what they want. Mid-level managers know less about what the CEO wants. Front-line employees only know what the Mid-level managers want. Often, very little of this is aligned.
2. Once you know what the business objectives are, find out the marketing objectives.
Business objective: Dominate the Software as a Service space in the Hydraulics industry.
Marketing objective: Increase market share in North America by 25% in FY 2012.
Strategy: Well, you’ll have to work on that one yourself…but, darnit, it’s a heck of a lot easier once you know why your company is in business.
The 25% number may be a reach, may be entirely too aggressive, may not be attainable. OR maybe it is. This is where ROI come in, right? Well, eventually…you’ll have to go after things like BUDGET and do some PLANNING. You’ll have to know what your marketing mix should look like and be able to come up with something that is in line with the bosses’ expectations AND their wallets.
3. Now…Sure You Wanna Go Social?
You will save a ton of headache by starting with step one, then going to step two. You may find that step three is moot. Or it’s not yours.
We once were part of the planning process for a social media initiative in the Energy industry…and, as we got into the planning process we all, as a team, realized that we could do one of two things.
Get into a turf war that would be counter-productive or
Hand Social off to the department that needed to own it, give them guidelines, and support them however we could.
#2 won – because the Objective for the business meant that the Objective for Marketing was…well…centered around the customer. And the customer was owned by another department, one with a catchy name. (Hint: It was “Customer Service.”)
Find out what game you’re playing. Talk Objectives. Then figure out what plays to run.
Clarity around objectives can make your “social” time much more palatable. Seriously: if the boss knows why you need to do this – or if YOU are the boss and you know why you need to do this – you can better justify the hours spent blogging, tweeting or updating the world on Facebook.
So how DO you set objectives? And can those objectives be purely social?
Some thoughts from here…
1. Awareness – good place to start. But knowing where you want to increase awareness is an even better place to start. Local? Hyper-local? Industry-focused?
We’ve met folks who said, simply, where they are right now is “eyeball acquisition.” Some tweets on a regular schedule, a hundred Facebook “likes” so they have an audience to speak to. Actually, not a bad objective.
2. Measuring can be a soft science. The obsession to measure everything – the obsession with the word “metrics” – has taken a lot of the “social” out of social media.
We made a concerted effort beginning October 1 at Area 224 HQ to blog regularly. By regularly, we said “once a day during the week, give or take.” We missed a few days, we double-posted a couple other days. But the result was a traffic spike – but also an awareness spike. In that we got calls, we got emails, and the inbound marketing machine was, well, working.
3. You work for the boss. If you’re inside Corporate America somewhere, you need to find out who that boss is. You might be in corporate communications, but if it’s the CEO who gets to be the social face of the enterprise, then your objectives are gonna be different.
And you may have to have a heart-to-heart talk with your actual boss: executive positioning and industry thought leadership have just become your objectives as a team.
4. Being social can be an objective. Reconnecting with friends, old classmates, old colleagues – strengthening your actual social network – this is a great use of time. And you can be up front about it to the boss: “having a better LinkedIn network helps us showcase our organization’s expertise, and opens us all up to more business opportunities.”
Setting social objectives need not be totally stressful. Start small and ask the right questions.
