Social Media. Carolyn Boyes

next year. If you’ve already got your brand name set up you won’t need to worry about someone else taking it. Choose a consistent name across the channels, or if you have more than one brand, think through which channels are suitable for which brands.

      Make sure you get your accounts ‘verified’ or authenticated where appropriate so that people know the accounts are real. You will notice on Twitter, for example, that verified accounts have a tick next to them.

      one minute wonder Social media can be used as a way of reducing the costs of training staff. You can post videos and content online for your staff or run interactive seminars through apps like WizIQ. Interesting, interactive content will increase the learning experience.

      The average user has more than one social media account and this number is likely to rise. However some users do still find a community they enjoy most and spend the majority of their time there. It’s a complex situation for business. You need to know your users and also not spread yourself too thin.

      Make sure you buy all the relevant account names you need before you begin, even if you don’t use them immediately.

       1.7

       Draw up a content strategy

      Free content is everywhere on the web. It’s one of the biggest changes that the digital world has brought us. It is said that there is more information around in the last five years than in the whole of human history. Your content needs to make an impact to be noticed.

      In the past people expected to pay for content. Now, users get it for free but they are still greedy for interesting new content every day.

      Consider what products or services you are going to produce and promote. Then think how you can do this through interesting content that people will want to search for, print and save or forward to their friends.

      Content can take the form of long or short blogs (posts about a particular subject, product or service), short tweets on Twitter, webinars, slideshares, photographs, videos on YouTube or Vine, e-books or infographics. This gives you a lot of scope for interesting, visual ways to present what you do.

      Think about your three top products or services. Why would someone want them? How would they help them? What would make them buy them? Now think about how you can create three short pieces of writing which you can use as blog posts. Or perhaps you would like to write an e-book and promote it through ten or so regular blog posts that you post over a series of weeks?

      “The first lesson of branding: memorability. It’s very difficult buying something you can’t remember” John Hegarty

      one minute wonder When you are planning your content, only post when you can answer the three ‘why’ questions: Why this form of content? Why now? Why this channel? If your answers aren’t clear then delay or ditch the idea and think again.

      There are so many choices. What about presenting the same information visually? How about laying it out as a PowerPoint? Or as a series of webinars? Would do you want to present? What if you could engage experts to present that information for you and interview them in a collection of videos? Perhaps you are going to present the information in multiple ways. Are you going to do it all at the same time or create anticipation by posting over a period of time?

      You can present the same content in long blogs, short tweets, in photos or videos.

       1.8

       Be aligned

      Social media is a two-way conversation. Part of it is driven from the ‘bottom up’ with millions of people all over the world active online. However, your approach to social media needs to be ‘top down’ – driven by a clear strategy – and aligned with the rest of your business.

      Your social media strategy will only make an impact on your bottom line results by being part of your broader business plan. Once you have a clear idea of your brand you can create an overall marketing strategy and from that create a digital marketing campaign.

      Your social media strategy sits within and alongside this marketing strategy. It should be aligned with your business rather than created in response to one specific social media platform. Of course, the digital world is very fast moving. Every day something is happening on social media and by the end of next year there will be new social media platforms you have never heard of. It’s tempting to just act quickly every time a new app appears, but hold back and always keep aligned with your overall strategy. It is better to be a slow adopter of technology than to produce poor content that puts off potential customers.

      one minute wonder Start by thinking about the top five sites which would be useful to you immediately. Then consider how you can achieve a balance between activity around sharing articles and expertise, product-centric posts, reviews, images and videos and how this all fits within your broader business strategy.

      Have your brand strategy in place first before you begin your social media campaign.

       1.9

       Take an inventory

      When someone clicks on your account on a social media channel you want them to find interesting content and keep browsing. Then you want them ideally to click on links to your website and other social media accounts. To achieve this you need to be interesting and relevant.

      Do you have the knowhow and resources to post a lot of content frequently and consistently? You’ll need to.

      What content do you have available right now? Unless you are starting a business from scratch you probably already have a lot of content out there that is usable but just in the wrong form. Check for any existing videos about your organization, product or even employees. It doesn’t matter if they are too long or dull for social media. You may be able to steal extracts or images and edit them into a different form. What about doing a mash-up of photos or bits of video to fun music?

      Have you ever done any podcasts or written white papers? Have you taken photographs for annual reports or brochures? You probably already have more content than you realize. What about articles journalists have written about you? Do you have any testimonials from happy customers? Gather them all up.

      one minute wonder Keep an ongoing database of your assets. Inventory them on a spreadsheet with headings divided up by topic and type, e.g. photograph, video, etc. Decide where you will use the content. Put an editorial calendar in place with clear deadlines.

      Inventory your assets and see what you can revamp, edit and leverage into content for social media. If it is not suitable for now, simply archive it. Even that 1970s film of the employees in old-fashioned clothes may be fun to pull out for the anniversary of the founding of the company. You’re only limited by your own creativity and imagination.

      Inventory your assets and see what is usable for multimedia content.