Developing a Social Media Policy Print
Written by Larry Dearing   
Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:28
If you’re like me, you spend a fair amount of time keeping up with your social media and networking plan.  Even worse is spending far too much time on trying to conquering this monster by not having a plan and a set of policies or guidelines set up to forward your business or professional web presence.   A little bit of time spent organizing your thoughts and objectives for your social networking campaigns can pay off big in time saved.

Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, and the myriad of other social media platforms each have their own processes, purposes, and followings.  Not all ideas and “policies” will work for them equally.  That being said, the basic questions you want to ask yourself are the same questions.  It’s the answers that will vary between platforms.  Initial questions might be… Who are you trying to reach?  What is your “organic” following; who might follow you just because you’re there?  How can you adjust your offerings on each platform to interact with your target audience?
 
Now that you know who your target audience is, you can move on to asking who is actually following you.  Most of your followers are not going to be your target audience.  Not that you can ignore them, but keep your message focused for your target audience.  Some of the casual followers may become “converts” but most of these aren’t really listening anyway… they’re following too many others to really notice you and are only interested in a large numbers.  Twitter is the big example here.  You can spend a lot of time chasing followers that never see your message.  Again, focus your message to who is really listening.  They want to hear about what you’re doing that’s relevant, not every move you make throughout the day.

So who will you follow?  Twitter can suck a lot of time pursuing courtesy or reciprocal followers.  Why?  Most aren’t really following you.  If they want to follow you, let them.  There are only so many people you can effectively follow.  Follow those of personal or real and purposeful strategic interest.   With Linkedin, members usually fall into one of two broad categories of closed networkers connecting only with those they personally know and open networkers who will connect with anyone to get their “numbers” up.  It is particularly important to ask hard questions about who you will follow and why.

Another question to ask in developing your social media and networking policy is how much do you integrate your personal social networking with your professional networking?  Do you Tweet personal and professional messages together?  Do you post personal and professional posts together on Facebook?  Your friends might feel you’re a marketing machine and you’re business followers might think you’re an immature moron if you don’t give this one some thought.  While some cross posting can be beneficial, particularly working your professional message into your personal message occasionally, particular care must be given no not alienate your target audiences.

Too complicated?  In a way  yes, but not asking basic questions of why you are doing social media and what you want from each platform can lead to ineffective campaigns, diluting of your brand, and many hours of ineffective social media efforts.  Know who your audience is, know what you’re real message should be, and determine the best way to engage that target audience in a meaningful dialogue and interaction revolving around your message and you’ll be well on your way to realizing real value from your social media and networking efforts. 

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