Keep it Simple, Social!

agardina — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:59:02 +0000

One of my high school teacher’s favorite phrases was “Keep It Simple, Silly!” (she was too polite to use the other form of the phrase) – and it’s always been one of my favorite lines. It works for almost everything – work, love, family, cooking, writing, designing – 99% of the time, you’re better off keeping it simple.

So it drives me absolutely up the wall when I see people in my own industry ignoring this golden rule. Social media is the ultimate place for KISS-ing, in fact, I think we should all have it permanently displayed somewhere near our computers and phones.

As social media marketers, we’re recommending that companies participate in the space because that’s where their customers are. The oft-used cocktail party analogy makes its way into many a pitch, and ends with us saying “Your customers are talking about you here. You should be here too.”

We’re going into these networks where our customers already have relationships. They already have standards of etiquette (spoken or unspoken) and whether or not they interact with us is truly on their terms. Why are we jumping into the cocktail party as the guy who likes to make everyone solve riddles, instead of being the person who’s easy to talk to and connect with?

An example. KAYAK recently ran a promotion where they gave away 4 round-trip tickets on a different airline each week. To sign up, a user had to go through the following process:

1) Connect via Facebook on KAYAK’s website
2) Fill in a ton of personal information, including address, phone number & email address
3) Enter to win! Just kidding – at this point, KAYAK decided to “social media it up” and require a user to invite their friends to enter the contest as well. The twist: 3 of those friends would be the 3 that the user would take with them on their vacation, and in order for the entry to count, all 3 had to enter as well.

What? You’ve now added an extra step for your user, and added a whole process for 3 of their friends. KAYAK’s page immediately filled with negative user feedback and pleas from fans for other users to friend them and enter as a group. Whoever wins that contest may find that they’re headed on vacation with someone they’ve never met.

KAYAK needed someone to tap them on the shoulder and say, “Keep It Simple, Social!” Users didn’t want to spam their networks on someone else’s behalf, and in a medium full of sweepstakes and promotions, it was just as easy to move on from one that required a bit too much work and information.

Every time you interact with a brand’s social media campaign, ask yourself – is there a way this could have been simpler? Would this be more popular, more powerful, if it was pared down just a bit? You’ll find more often than not, the answer is yes.

Trunk and Branches - Social Media Strategy for Rookies

agardina — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:54:31 +0000

Starting a social media campaign is a lot like planting a tree. You have to start somewhere, and it's best to start with your roots. Your mission statement, your current audience, your beliefs - no matter what you do in a non-profit, it should always come back to these fundamentals. Let's take a look at what I call the "trunk and branches" approach to social media:

This is an example of a social media tree that I've been working on for The Women's Museum. When you're just starting off on a social media campaign, it's important to have a hub that you focus on. For us, it's been Twitter, where we've built our audience and found brand evangelists that will share our message as well as our other social media initiatives. From there, we drive traffic to our other initiatives in a useful way. We don't just say "Become a fan on Facebook!" but instead say "We have this program coming up, click here for more information". This also allows us to use Facebook's RSVP tool to keep track of attendees. As another example, the response rate for the message "Check out photos from this recent event" gets a much higher click-through rate than "Here's our Flickr page". When trying to drive traffic to your other sites, always remain conversational and specific.

If you're just starting a social media campaign, take some time to strategize. Think of where your target audience is and what tools you think you can use most effectively. If you have a ton of b-roll footage, maybe your best bet is using YouTube. If you have a more long-form story to tell, try a blog.

Growth & Expansion
With a good strategy, growth via social media is all but guaranteed. After you've dedicated sufficient time to building this tree and its branches, you may be able to create another tree with your strongest components. For example, if you've been using Twitter, but you now have a completely separate audience that's going straight to your blog, that's your second tree. Speak to both of those audiences with your message, but deliver it in a way that's suitable to them. Twitter users may want brief snapshots, but blog readers want more of a story, with photos, videos, quotes, etc.

What do you think of the social media tree? What's your trunk? Have you started "branching out"?

alyssagardina.com - campaigns

Keep it Simple, Social!

Trunk and Branches - Social Media Strategy for Rookies