We had chance to discuss use of various social media platforms and management tools with clients and contacts at our Happy Hour session recently. Its always great to hear reflections and experiences direct from people working in local businesses and organisations who are trying to make social media effective in their work.
One point raised in discussions was that of 'e-etiquette' and how we set out to act professionally in engaging new contacts through social media. We've found some useful resources for people considering this issue (including - http://eetiquette.com) but mostly they are still focussed on email etiquette rather than the more common challenges posed by social networks and social media.
One reflection we have here on the team is that in many ways, social media is a combination of what businesses used to regard as 'customer service' and PR (public relations). We are experiencing businesses that use social media in a particularly strong way, and in doing so they not only project a positive image about their company, but are also able to swiftly circulate information about its products and services in order to support growth in sales but without putting sales at the front of their initial contact.
Our overall advice about using social media and social networks in businesses and organisations is to not be seen as aggressively marketing and selling on these platforms. People will soon be turned off and stop following your updates. Don't make sales your primary focus, but instead aim to increase contacts, engagement, understanding of your organisation. Create an image, or persona which effectively portrays your business in this way.
Leading from these thoughts about good practice, conduct and approach we've been considering - "do we need specific 'brand guidelines' and staff training specific to the nature of our interactions on social media". We're clear that the answer to this is "yes". All organisations will need to invest in their staff and ongoing improvement in skills and knowledge around social media - and in doing so will realise new benefits and effective uses.
Obvious issues are ensuring that the business, sector or local hashtags are used whenever effective to gain access to wider audiences and interests. Here we use #cosmicuk to identify all our business-related news, and #socmed for social media, #socent for social enterprise, #devon and #honiton.
But others such as setting up and managing (meaningful and effective) groups and campaigns on systems like LinkedIn are perhaps more difficult to grapple with and in January we are going to be producing a lot of new resources and materials on professional networks like LinkedIn to incorporate into our workshops and seminars in 2013.