Six Successful Social Media “Must Do” Steps

by Roberto AraujoTo learn algebra, you buy an

algebra book. To learn about history, you buy a history book. To learn social media, you read blogs, forums, ask online questions and do research.Here at LMGPR, our skilled staff and the experience of running various social media accounts have taught us that in order to run an effective social media campaign the following six “Must do” steps (in no particular order) need to be considered:

1. Visibility
2. Selectivity
3. Frequency
4. Engagement
5. Insight
6. Metrics

Visibility- A simple, well written, brief and informative tweet shouldn’t only get as much visibility as your number of followers, but many thousands more. If you run an effective social media campaign and have the right people following you, one tweet could reach out thousands of tweeps and spread virally. Just add your number of followers, plus the number of followers of those who RT you and you will have an idea of how many people your tweet was exposed to. This, in return, will bring brand awareness, participation and potential opportunities.Selectivity- A lot of times we follow people because of their name, the company they work for or to retain a relationship. Out of those hundreds of people whom we follow, we realize that much of what they tweet is simply useless. Twitter lists gives the selectivity we need in order to focus on those whom we think are worth our attention. Once you’ve organized and set up your lists, it’s much easier to pay attention and provide feedback to those who you’re looking at the right moment at engagement.Frequency- If you’re looking to grow your following and expect people to take you seriously, then you need to make your presence expected. Showing a frequent presence on your social media sites is like attending church every Sunday and expecting being recognized. If people ask you questions, make sure answer them back in a reasonable amount of time. This also encourages them to participate when you seek it. Remember to always retain a good virtual karma.Engagement- This is a given. Engagement should be what you’re social media program is all about. The more you engage, the more relationships you will create and retain. But engaging with your followers is one thing, but engaging with influencers like CEOs, journalists, investors, potential clients should be your main goal. By doing that you don’t only increase your visibility, but also can get briefing requests, business development opportunities or feedback from prominent figures.Insight- It’s okay to let people know what you’re company is up to once in a while like “We’re celebrating our 4 year anniversary,” however is not okay to say “Today is Randy’s birthday, Happy birthday Randy.” No one knows who Randy is and does not want to see your company letting everyone clog their twitter stream with such a useless tweet. It always important to think that quality is better than quantity. People are looking for useful insight. Make your company’s tweets or status updates be a statement to be look forward to, where people can count on learn something from them. Something they could retweet and feel proud of.Metrics- Although there isn’t much on how to measure the ROI on social media, there definitely is a few ways you can measure the progress of your social media campaign. Websites like TwitterGrader, Klout or Twitter Analyzer can give you an idea of where you start, your progress and where you need help. TwitterGrader and Klout actually give you a score on your campaign effort. This two companies use unique algorithms that look at a number of factors they feel your social media campaign should have in order to give you a high or low score. These are some great tools to use in order to show your clients the progress of their social media sites.Case Study: FireEye Twitter

Our enterprise client FireEye had a great month of October. They averaged 4 press publications a week without having to launch any new product, or make any big announcement. In order to accomplish these results, some team effort was needed. FireEye was busy writing blogs about their newest modern malware findings, while our team at LMGPR worked on gathering information on bloggers and journalists who were writing on this issue in the space and mapping out strategies to reach out to them through Twitter. Our efforts paid off, several journalists reached out to us asking for expert opinions on what was going on in the security industry. We were able to land coverage in publications as InformationWeek, eWeek, Security Dark Reading, ComputerWorld and many more.