Question: How important is original content in terms of our Social Media success? We do a lot of sharing on Social but our content is lacking and very inconsistent. Appreciate your thoughts?
While there is absolutely no one size fits all plan for every business in every industry, there are important considerations for companies looking to grow their business using social media.
I think at the very root of the problem lies the idea that way too many organizations believe that Social Media is the savior for their business. As if a Facebook page and Twitter handle are going to equate to a magic win-fall of new customers.
Let me be the bearer of bad news. Social Media will not do this, at least not by just being there.
When it comes down to it, the companies that are having the most success on social tend to all do these 3 things.
Create Content: Yes, to answer your question, I know few extremely successful social businesses big or small that don’t do any “Thought Leadership.” And while I say it parenthesis, I do genuinely think that companies need to add something to their industry and/or community and content in the form of blogs, videos and other (infographic, slideshare) are critical to making this happen.
Curate Content: Even if you are posting multiple pieces of original content each day, there are so many more good resources that your prospects and customers can benefit from. Great social organizations mix in this content with their original content. They also take it once step further by adding something relevant to the content so the audience can see how it aligns with the company sharing it and the reader consuming the information.
Social Customer Service: Some people call this engagement but since I believe customer experience entails the entire customer life-cycle I am going to call it social customer service. Nevertheless, just sharing and creating content isn’t enough, smart social organizations listen and interact with their customers and they do it well by being helpful, supportive and responsive to their current and potential customers on social channels.
Social Media won’t save your business and it isn’t a quick fix either, but it is a great way to build a community. How is your business getting social?
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.