15 Meaty Tips on Social Media Strategy

I had the good fortune to attend the Innovation Summit 2010 at the Indiana Convention Center last Wednesday.

The brain power in the building was impressive: venture capitalists, tech whiz-kids, business gurus and research powerhouses. There was an augmented reality flying whirligig from Ball State; a pen with a built-in scroll from Indiana University; and at lunch some very salty yet very dry chicken trying to hide under breading and gravy.

But the real meat of the program for me was the ExactTarget panel on social media, moderated by Tim Kopp, Chief Marketing Officer at ExactTarget, and including Jay Baer, social media consultant, speaker and author and president of Convince and Convert; John Lopes, Chief Marketing Officer of Andretti Green Racing; and Chris Baggott, cofounder/CEO of Compendium.

Though paraphrased and slightly out of order, here are some of their timely points as food for thought (much better than chicken):

1. The goal is not to be good at social media, but to be good at business because of social media.

2. Tracking "number of followers" is like collecting baseball cards: How many do you have? More important is, how many read what you post? Social media is about activating people. Creating advocacy. Get people who like you to be active on your behalf.

3. Engaging followers and fans requires an intimacy; it means offering them an exclusive, something they can't get anywhere else.

4. People want to buy stuff from people whom they like and trust, and social media gives you a chance to do that. Social media is branding 2.0: It feels personal and human, and drives loyalty.

5. B2B businesses have an advantage—they already have relationships with people and interact with them like humans.

6. Today, 83 percent of web traffic comes from search. People are unplugging, saying they can't parse all of the invitations to connect. They are trained to ignore marketing. The thought is: When I have a problem, I will type words into a box; someone had better show up and make an offer. Customers control the message, and they want it on-demand.

7. You solve a problem or you don't exist. Tell a story about how people have benefitted. Tell the story of how what you do is useful, has benefit.

8. One of the greatest selling tactics is the similar story. Social media give you lots of similar-situation stories being told.

9. If no one is searching for you, you have to create stories that give them something to talk about. Social chatter. You have to make your own content and make it super search-oriented.

10. The content creation strategy is to always make it bigger than the category that you're in. No company is so interesting that they can write only about their stuff. It's not about the company, it's about the movement.

11. It’s forcing marketers outside of their comfort zone. You have to give them something extra to create that stickiness. If you hold back you're going to lose market share.

12. And if you can be hyper-relevant, you will succeed. In an opt-in culture, people don't look until they need.

13. Every company is becoming its own TV station, its own magazine. Media used to be the middle man. But the middle is fading away quickly. Now, everybody in a company is in marketing and customer service.

14. Social media doesn't create negativity; it just puts a magnifying glass on it. It shines a light on those experiences and allows you to address it. If you're not there participating, you're at the mercy of the haters.

15. Your brand is the sum of the conversations about you. Social media is where those conversations are being held.

Notable is the fact that this discussion, held at the Techpoint Innovation Summit, didn't touch on platforms or tools. It talked about talking--innovations in communicating. If you don't know how your audience expects to communicate now, the platforms, tools and technology are just gravy.