Before implementing any social media strategy, consider:

1. Start with a Social Media Audit to answer who is talking?, where they are? and what are they saying?. If you want to complete a full overview of your actual social media effort, I invited you to check the post by Tamar Weinberg and Arik Hanson.

2. Next is the strategy by answering what’s you opportunity socially?, are you doing this right?, how could be change?, what is the opportunity?

3. Rather than creating something new, consider connecting with someone who already has a presence or leveraging a movement or conversation already happening.

4. Remember, a dialogue is not only speaking but listening and understanding what people is saying about you.

5. Focus on who do you want to be your followers, think of quality instead of quantity.

6. Put human faces/touch to the brand and the dialogue.

7. When creating a campaign think of what do consumers get in return for viewing, interacting with, contributing to or amplifying your content or campaign?

8. When creating content, your reader/buyer has to think: “This is very interesting, and I think my friends will find it interesting too. So I’m going to post this link to my social network“. You have to capture the attention, motivate and engage.

9. If you want to reach critical mass, you have to engage brand ambassadors (internal / external) in order to escalate the communication effort from a centralised model to a social one. To do this you have to give your ambassadors the appropriate training, tools and information for them to effectively participate in the dialogue about your brand.

10. For the last tip the social media opportunity, I want to quote Sarah Gilbert Senior Brand Manager at Smirnoff

“The best way to capitalise on this opportunity is to inspire customers to shape the brand experience we create and allow us to share those with them, creating active and proactive online communities“