Today, 30 June, is International Social Media Day, so The Drum caught up with industry experts from social to find out their top tips on what not to do on social.
With some of the judges from the Social Buzz Awards giving their hints, this is also an opportunity for brands to make sure their content is great before submitting their work.
You can see some real social media fails here.
James Cuff, head of content and social media, Confused.com
Focus on long-term customer engagement over quick winsAlmost 18 months on, brands are still chasing their Oreo moment, with real-time marketing now firmly entrenched in the lexicon.This was clearly evident last week as many brands, with varying degrees of success, tried to piggyback on the Luis Suarez biting incident.While it’s important for brands to remain visible in the heavily-congested social streams of consumers, social media enables brands to foster long-term relationships with their customers. This is where our focus should be; not trying to impress our marketing peers with our wit, and making it on a listicle of the ‘best brand banter’.In short, don’t feel the need to jump on everything. Plan ahead and don’t be afraid to pull an idea if it’s not right for your brand.
Dom Burch, senior director of marketing innovation and new revenue, Asda
Be relevant, be responsive, be prepared to listen first, engage second, and influence third.But above all be yourself.
Jim Dowling, managing director, Cake
In the spirit of the adventure, excitement and enthusiasm that International Social Media Day has brought to us all, my advice would be to be bold, and to avoid conservatism. You're never more than a mile away from a planner calling up a powerpoint slide revealing the gazillions of users of Facebook and Twitter. Most marketers know social is massively influential, and I doubt any say, "you know what, we've cracked it." The issue for most is fear of the almighty fail. I spent last week researching social media fiascos, disasters and mishaps. It wasn't difficult to find gloating articles by social media gurus on any number of them, #McDStories, Kellogg's asking for retweets for breakfast clubs, Dominos staff picking their noses and wiping them on food.Dig into the detail, and either the noise has been generated by social media consultants looking for fees; or social media has highlighted a genuine fault-line on their business. They can then go and fix it. So what's not to love? The sun is shining, the World Cup's the best ever - Happy International Social Media Day everyone!
Javier Burón, CEO and co-founder, SocialBro
Don't treat Twitter like some kind of soft channel that is disconnected from the rest of your marketing activity. Marketing is a fluid discipline, and your audience may fade out from one channel and then be more prominent on another. Give your users the chance to interact with you where and when they want, and give them a consistent experience. And remember you can use what you learn from Twitter interactions to improve the performance of other channels, like email marketing. Twitter should be built into your campaigns as an integral factor, not an add on. Make sure the same level of creativity and strategic thinking are applied to this channel as the rest of your marketing activities
Merinda Peppard, EMEA marketing director, HootSuite
Be focused. For brands the possibilities are endless on social media. Base your social objectives on your business objectives. Define what you want success to look like and what metrics you will use. Be transparent. Implement clear guidelines on how to engage and communicate on social and then empower your employees across the organisation. Don’t be afraid of letting personalities come through and remember customer experience should always be top of mind. Be secure. In social media there is nothing worse than a hacked or misused company account, it can create all kinds of headlines and could even affect stock price. Use platforms like Hootsuite and utilise the Secure Profiles and Limited Permissions functionality to control access and output and add managed security and compliance services to further protect your brand. Be smart. Use analytics from a tool like uberVU via Hootsuite. Take analytics seriously and learn from the insights they can provide. Take the time to understand and benchmark your campaigns. Don’t be afraid of scale. If your business currently keeps social in a silo, it is missing out on leveraging the reach, efficiency and value of social across the whole organisation. Be the evangelist and help train everyone from marketing, HR, sales, customer service and of course the C-Suite.
