Staying current with the Social Media scene

Now that you have created a social media policy, a plan of action and have taken the necessary steps in protecting your social media investment, it is time to use helpful tools that will keep your site relevant and you up to date with the latest trends. You need to take advantage of the online resources to stay current with social media. A way to do this is to subscribe to feeds about social marketing from one or more marketing blogs or news services. For instance I subscribe to  Social Media Examiner, SEO Hacker, Guorilla Media, and various marketing and social media groups on Linkedin. I have daily and weekly feeds that come to me that keeps me up to date with the latest in social media. This gives me all the information I need in one place and controls the frequency of delivery.

Other social media resources recommended include:

• Mashable
• FastCompany
• Add This
• Top Rank Blog
• Slashdot
• Social Media Today
• Social Networking Business
• HubSpot
• BigMarketingSmallBusiness

Social media marketing could take a lot of time because of the various places to get information.  Tools like Ping.fm to post your updates to whichever social media service you select. You can group by platform or send the same message to all. You can use your mobile device to even send messages and not have to be at your computer.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Social Media Policy

Now that we’ve determined that your company needs to be involved in social media, created a plan and made an outline, its now time to create a social media marketing policy. Whether the social media team is just you or a group of people you should write up a few guidelines to follow that can always be expanded later on.

A social media policy is good because it addresses both what employees are allowed to do on behalf of the company and what is forbidden. Things like using personal accounts at work and who can respond to customer inquiries and product information can be addressed.  Make sure the policy is short and easy to read and understand. It should address risk management, respect for audience, individual privacy protection, and intellectual property protection.

Hear are a few things to consider in your policy:

• Your purpose of social media
• Intended auidience
• Responsibilities of your writing
• Practice good judgemet
• Respect copyrights and trademarks
• Install value
• Protect confidential information

Cheers,

Randall

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Putting together a Social Media Marketing Outline

So now that we know what social media marketing is and we have a plan of action in implementing it, I want to show you an outline on what a good social media marketing strategy looks like. This will be a good source to look back on when measuring your plans success and evaluating your goals and success criteria. I put this together based off several outlines and tactical forms. Feel free to edit and share.

You can print and fill out the outline here Social Media Marketing Outline

Randall Jefferson