Now you must be wondering, why is there a picture from Field of Dreams (well i actually havent seen it, but i only know that quote up there)
Okay, in field of dreams - Kevin Costner (don’t know the character’s name) builds a baseball field in a corn field, in turn ghosts of baseball players appear to his field.
Though it worked in the movies - it is not the kind of approach you need to take when starting social media campaigns/web 2.0 functions and sites.
It is slightly narrow minded to think that if you create a twitter account/facebook fan page/discussion boards/blogs - and expect people to join up and take notice. Aside from giving viewers reason to view said items, there is the need to promote your brand the other social media aspects you have.
How do you do that?
You need to spend time communicating with YOUR audience, and go to where your audience is already. If you are writing a football blog, spend time on other football blogs and comment on those blogs, backlink to your blog - spend time on football forums, follow football related sources on twitter etc… You need to spend time getting your name out there without too much ‘shouting’ and build your brand on those channels. Once you have a name in those channels - they will come back to you.
Also these things take time, give discussion boards time to develop; twitter accounts to accrue, fan pages to build and hopefully user generated content will follow.
The gist of it is that, you can’t just build networks and expect people to come without you telling them about it.
What is social media worth?If you’re working for a large institution, social media is a lot like kryptonite to your super legal and risk team. As soon as you even mention the word they start running in the opposite direction. The question begs to be asked, what is is it costing your brand by avoiding the danger of negative perceptions spreading through social networks by simply not having your own presence there? Is it really worth it? The answer is of course yes, because everybody is already there talking about your brand, so you might as well join in on the conversation.
Derek Parker from The Australian wrote an interesting article today referencing Kevin the ATM’s fan page on facebook which was part of an integrated campaign we created here at M&C Saatchi in Melbourne. The article says that the best way to manage your presence is to ‘look and listen’.
Griffin points out 4 keys to getting a good reputation online :
1) Be honest about who you are and who you represent
2) Develop an “early warning” mechanism to monitor social networks
3) Have an action plan using social and traditional media and
4) Understand how stakeholders, including employees, use social media.
Check out Parker’s article here and if you’re not already, why not become a fan of Kevin the ATM on facebook.
Rob
To go back to my gaming roots, and to quote an infamous character ‘Navi’ from the Legend of Zelda.
Hey! Listen!
To echo something that Gary Vaynerchuk mentioned in one of his Q&As and other social media experts say, is that to get out there you have to listen to everything that is out there. Be it on forums, blogs, twitter; the list could go on but the principal is the same. Seems simple yeh?
Listen to the conversations, then engage and add value. In doing so, people will be interested in your thoughts/opinions and in turn will read your blogs, follow your tweets, fan you on facebook - the list goes on.
Information is plentiful, the sites and sources to said information is almost anywhere on the web - all you would need to do is listen then engage. Then people will engage with you.
Sure this isn’t new news but its still something that needs to be echoed. Put in the effort and the rewards should come after.
Noah Brier discussing the role of digital strategists on the Barbarian Blog. I absolutely agree. (via alexjcampbell)
Echo that!
Well this is a quick test of Tumblr and what it can do.
After months of umming and aaah-ing about creating a blog, i thought i’d jump onto the Tumblr bandwagon and see how easy this is to play with.
Who knows - i may even get hooked to this.
I guess as long as ive got something interesting to say, i’ll put it up here.
… and now to figure out the rest of this thing :)
