Communicating our brand on social media

In the next hour we will cover o mission – Who is and what does it want to achieve? o Goals – What do we want to accomplish from social media? o Steps – How can we work together to achieve these goals? o Metrics – How should we measure our success?

is Get your team to brainstorm a list of adjectives that describe your company – examples are below o A community o Social o Fun o Inclusive o Value for money o Current o Approachable o Fresh Fill up half a whiteboard with your responses – no answer is a bad answer

And therefore is not… Do the same as before on the other side of the whiteboard – you might be surprised to find you are unintentionally coming across as some of these things through your communications. Some examples are below o Boring o Exclusive o Intimidating o Stuck in the past o Rigid

Why is using social media? It may be that you are not using social media but you are using EDMs or blogs. Either way, it is a useful exercise to reflect on why exactly you are doing it. For example: o Customer service o As an advertising tool o To keep our international staff aware of what’s happening in our office o Because someone told us to

Are we using the right social networks? Too often we spend too long on social networks or other marketing activities that actually have very little relevance or efficacy. You now know what your brand is, and how it should speak. Now get your team to list out the latest social networks that are available to you and rank them in order of which is most suitable for your brand. For example: - Linkedin - Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

So, let’s take a look at what we’re doing Here’s where you bring up your current social media pages, to assess whether or not what you are doing is aligned with your brand voice and personality, and whether they are working. For example: o Which are your top posts o Which posts are attracting interaction from potential customers/brand ambassadors o Where are your visitors coming from o Are photos/videos/articles/witty posts more interesting to your followers?

What do we hope to get out of social media engagement? Time is money, and social or digital marketing activities take a lot of time! Get your team to brainstorm what they hope to achieve from their many hours on the company’s Instagram handle. For example: o Gain 1000 followers on Instagram o Generate meaningful conversations on Twitter o Gain a new customer per month o Increase our web traffic

How are we going to make that happen? By now your team should have some idea of what they could be doing better. Hopefully their ideas for improvement should fill a whole whiteboard! Here are some examples other brands have come up with: o Post more photos of things we love, are inspired by and are doing on Instagram – follow and interact with people of influence. o Contribute to hashtags that are aligned with our brand (such as #happyhour for an alcohol brand). o Employ an SEO expert to review our website to make sure we are doing the very best we can with what we have.

How will we manage to get all that work done? Everyone has mile-long to-do lists but there must be more efficient ways of doing things so that everyone is working towards your marketing goals. Lay out a schedule of what your team can feasibly achieve over five working days. Your schedule for Instagram might look like this: o Monday – Gemma to post: What are we eating o Tuesday – Jane to post: Out at an event – capture a piece of detailing we really love which is aligned to our brand. Link to brands/people who are also at the event to prompt interaction. o Wednesday – Monica/Jeremy: Show a teaser of something we are working on. o Thursday – Gemma: Make a concerted effort to search for new Instagrammers to follow – like their posts and comment. o Friday – Winston to post: Weekend inspiration!

What do we ultimately hope to achieve? List out what you hope to achieve in the next week, month, quarter and year. Keep the list short and achievable. For example: o Reach the elusive1000 likes on Facebook o Post 5 on-brand Instagram pics per week o Achieve at least three shares through each of our posts on Linkedin

Let’s continue to revise our strategy Here’s where you block in time teams’ diary to revisit and revise your strategy once every two months (or every month if you can). Every team member should come to the discussion with one new insight, in addition to respective action items. Sites that will keep you updated on the latest industry trends include: o SocialTimes o Mashable o TechCrunch o Social Media Today o Linkedin forums o Global news sites’ tech/digital/marketing columns o Mutant Communications’ blog

Have fun! And please do not hesitate to contact us here at Mutant Communications. We would love to help you communicate your brand and develop your social media strategy.