Social Media Marketing? What about just being social!

Got You Spinning?

Today we were working on some Social Media details that, quite honestly, make my head spin. Just when I was getting sort of used to Facebook and Twitter, I now have to get familiar with Instagram, Pinterest, Google Plus and probably a few others that I don't know anything about.

Keeping up with our social media campaigns here includes postings, building "likes" and generally finding meaningful ways to actually interact with our customers and the community.

In the past we had hired a social media company and paid out a lot of money for relatively moderate ROI, so now we only have a small contract with a media company to do some stuff for us but we have taken a lot of this activity in-house. For many RDS's I think the debate over how to do "social" is in flux, but I see others bringing the general activity within their own walls.

Why Do It Yourself?

Although it's not for everyone, doing it yourself/in-house may be a better way to truly keep customers engaged. For those of us who may have found companies that are really good at building social media campaigns, great. However, I often feel like these posts and engagements are so artificial that the customers kind of know it.

Your people, especially all those young-ish CSRs are probably adept with most social channels AND they know and understand the RDS business (and, specifically YOUR RDS business) better than any outsourced provider.

Having the posts and engagement coming from within your walls will lead to genuine social interaction while also increasing the engagement of your own staff with your customers.

Guidelines are a Good Thing

Putting social media in the hands of your staff will mean that the staff needs to be in sync with the rest of the company's branding strategy, policies and goals. It doesn't take too much to get everyone on board, but having regular meetings, even once a week or so, to go over some of the details here would be helpful.

I like to know that everyone is aware of our promos, what is going on with restaurants, menu changes, etc. Beyond that we talk a lot about our "voice." There is a look, feel AND sound to our brand and our marketing and keeping our posts in that casual and fun tone that characterizes our brand is an important part of what we want to accomplish with social media -- because it simply reinforces our brand and image!

And remember -- being social means not just talking about yourself. It is extremely important to not turn your social engagement into a long string of commercials. We have a very tough time keeping from doing that, but are working hard at being ACTUALLY social with social media. 


Here's some more reading fodder:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232473#