CORPORATE’S SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSIBILITY

Social Media requires constant monitoring and ad-libbing. Where start-ups and SMEs require vigorous marketing and promotion, it’s an entirely different ball game for the well-established corporate. Enumerated below are my takes on the proper approach towards the avenue for the latter.

Be Selective!

It’s really important to prioritize what a company wants out of the phenomenon called Social Media (SM). They need to pick the top few upshots which they would like to see getting materialized through this platform.  Social media is enchanting because there are so many interesting things to read, people to meet and places to go. It's challenging to prioritize and pick just a few; so instead we end up trying to do it all, which is both time and capital intensive.

The correct approach would be to do a few things in a better way. Once it is decided upon, 90% of the energies must go into these priorities and the remaining 10% can be used for innovation.

Getting the Right Things Done

Being busy is one thing and working in the right direction is an entirely different thing, no rocket science though. It must be analyzed; the amount of time and capital invested in this space should give us the desired results. So it’s time that we reevaluated the investment we made in this sphere and strive to get the right things done accordingly.    

Staying focused is another important aspect of this game; it must be ensured that extra inputs or improvisation must be done without losing focus on the key areas we identify. News like the Facebook F8 developer’s conference or Steve Jobs passing away are important no doubt but their implication should be properly assessed before deflecting any energy towards them.

Getting it right at the top

The top executives of any well-established firms need to be well equipped with the social media space, as any wrong action they take on this space may snowball into a huge issue for the company. A recently released book by Peter Bregman called “18 Minutes” gives us valuable insights into how one can manage his reputation in just 18 minutes every day. This can help the creme-de-la-creme of such companies who generally have little time to manage their online reputation. Here is how:

Step 1 (5 Minutes) Your Social Media Morning Minutes

This is your opportunity to plan your social media for the day. Before turning on your computer or picking up your PDA, sit down with the to-do list and decide what is happening to make this a social media successful day. What can you realistically accomplish whether it’s writing a blog post, researching a new Twitter tool, sitting in on a webinar, or getting ready for that next conference?

Step 2 (1 Minute Every Hour) Social Media Refresh and Refocus

Managing your social media time hour-by-hour is both a discipline and a science. Don’t let the hours manage you … How many times do you all of a sudden realize you have spent the last 20 minutes reading Twitter updates, surfing Facebook Pages, or reading an article from an e-mail subscription?

Set your phone, computer or watch to ring every hour and start the work that is listed on your calendar. When you hear the beep, do a social media check up. Assess your progress and recommit the next hour to get back on track.

Step 3 (5 Minutes) Your Social Media after Dark

At the end of your day, shut the laptop and review your social media day. Ask yourself some questions: How did my social media day go? What did I learn today? Whom did I interact with? Did I meet new followers on Twitter that I should send a quick @ reply? Was there a nice RT of me I should acknowledge? Any comments on my blog I should respond to?

Building and maintaining relationships is critical in social media and it is easy to forget that it takes just a few minutes to share appreciation, congratulate someone, or offer thanks.

This is not a huge task to do, but when done with devotion can actually do wonders for companies by giving them a slight competitive edge. And in this era of cut-throat competition, a slight edge is all one needs to move up the ladder.