The number of people across the planet actively participating in one form of social media or another is mind boggling. Only a few days ago, Twitter announced that they have now signed up over 500 million users, and come the summer, Facebook are on track to double that number.
From a business perspective, social media is often seen as a complex beast and one that can easily turn round and bite you on the backside without warning. The potential on the face of it seems huge, with more than half the population of the UK currently active on one or more social media platforms. But how exactly can you make it work for you?
The first thing to do is adjust your expectations regarding traditional approaches to lead generation. For most businesses, social media will become an additional weapon in their marketing armoury, rather than replacing what’s gone before. And don’t expect instant results. It’s a bit of a slow burner in most cases, but contrary to popular belief, its effectiveness can be tracked so you will be able to report that all important ROI.
The big difference between social media and traditional media is that you can now actually engage directly with groups and individuals. Only a few years ago you felt like you were doing more than enough to attract new clients by simply posting your message on a website or placing an ad in a magazine, before sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring.
Each platform has its own particular strengths and pitfalls, so you’ll have to do a bit of research on each and work out what works best for you. That said, if you come back and look at this blog on a regular basis, I’ll be posting some practical advice for both new starters and seasoned pros looking to step up their game.
Roger Orwin
Digital Marketing Manager at Box Legal
Roger you are right Social Media is a difficult topic to master especially in the legal field, it is important people don’t go off on tangents doing their own thing, spending too much time Tweeting etc. this can be difficult if a social strategy isn’t in place. Difficulty with a SM strategy is that by the time it has been agreed up pop’s a Pinterest or Facebook introduces a ‘Time line’ feature and you’re knocked off course. So flexibility is a key element to a Social Strategy.
One thing that is a good idea is a ‘Social Media’ group within a firm; here at Pannone we now have a group that meets once every month that throws around ideas and discuss successes and best practice and to see if we can replicate in other teams.
Another key factor that has been referred to as ROE ‘Return on Engagement’ is understanding the value that engagement can have on the brand, some posts a negative comment about the firm what is the response, ideally you have to address it, try to tune something negative to a positive, it might be that it is impossible to do, but if a discussion is entered into with good intentions these will be clear to see.
Hi Steve
Many thanks for your comments.
As you suggest, the abundance of, and ease of access to, social media platforms has created the opportunity for disgruntled clients (and anyone else for that matter) to air their opinions on any subject they like to the world.
All businesses at some point or another will find themselves the subject of criticism on the web. As you point out, this isn’t going to simply go away, so engaging with the author and actually trying to actually help resolve their grievance is often the best approach to take and may even lead to the original comments being removed or at the very least demonstrate to anyone coming across this discussion, that you are an organisation who is genuinely prepared to take on board criticism and where possible, improve your service as a result.