Five Steps to crafting a social media policy for your startup

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So you’re using social media as part of your startup marketing strategy to help build awareness for your new business but you don’t have an official policy in place.  Hopefully, you are no longer asking yourself ‘why the need for the policy’ as that would have been fully ventilated in my previous blog titled ‘What Social Media Policy!’ - https://sanciacampbell.blogspot.com/2017/02/what-social-media-policy.html

While you may be a one-man operation, you may just have someone managing your business’s social media and so your policy becomes even more important. The following are five simple steps that you can take to craft your social media policy:

1.       Have goals and objectives – Whether it is to increase brand awareness, grow your social following or increase engagement with online customers, there must be established goals and objectives for having a social media marketing campaign.  Otherwise, you will just be on social media for being sake.

2.       Have a content plan – It is critical to know exactly what you are going to post and when.  A detailed content plan does not allow for ‘winging it’.  As a business owner, you should have already found out that planning ahead is critical to achieving business goals, so it is with social media marketing.  Having a plan helps your business to define its messages and target the right audiences.

3.       Remain consistent over all platforms – It is best to synchronize your social media platforms so that posting on one, automatically publishes on all – not only does it save time but it helps your business to remain consistent over all platforms in terms of messaging. 

4.       Incorporate employees – You may have none or just one right now, but the hope is that your startup now will be an established business very soon.  It is therefore important to incorporate any employees that you have as they may very well be the one managing your social media platform.  It is important to ensure that they are aware of your business’s confidentially policy both on and offline. 

5.       Know the social media landscape – Believe it or not, not every social media space is for your business.  Do an assessment of each platform and based on their attributes and capabilities as well as the type of audiences that frequently use each platform, make a selection.

Of course, these steps are not exhaustive, the bigger your business grows, the more in-depth your social media policy should become so constant revision and input from your growing team is necessary.

What social media policy!

Most startup and small businesses usually begin their foray into marketing by using social media.  Ask any business ‘newbie’ where they advertise or promote their business and inevitably, they will list social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Additionally, in many of these startup operations, the individual who manages Social Media is the same Entrepreneur who has day-to-day responsibility for all other aspects of the business such as production, distribution, sales, accounting etc.,

Managing social media as a startup attaches an added component as the Entrepreneur is no longer just ‘John Brown’ the strong opinioned, friend of all but foe to some; he is now John Brown, CEO of such and such a company and therefore his strong opinions may offend a few if both his business and personal pages meet.

How does he then keep his personal social media separate from his business’s social media account? Simply, craft a social media policy that controls how the business interacts with its followers on social media. 

We will look at crafting a social media policy for startups in a future blog but today, I am providing some guidelines for startups that are considering a social media policy but have not yet decided how to go about it…

-       Put the policy on paper – Not because you are the ‘head cook and bottle washer’ in your business means that everything should reside in your head.  Write down how you intend to interact with your social media clients so that when you grow beyond managing social media yourself, you have ready guidelines to provide your employee or social media management company with.

-       Separate your personal pages from your business’s social media platform – To avoid any unforeseen catastrophe, separate your personal page/s from your business’s social media platform.  If you tweet or share something offensive from your business page, remove it immediately and apologize forthwith.  Bear in mind however that the damage may already be done.

-       Be careful when sharing information that you do not own – Always try to use information, images and references that you acquire to promote your business but if you absolutely can’t, give credit to the owners of the information or image.  Ripping off the Intellectual property rights of others can cost you … bigly!

-       No need to reinvent the wheel – There are many startups that have gone before you, and soon you will be looked up to by newer startups in your industry.  Check with your predecessors to see how they crafted their policy, what was included and how you can benefit from what already exists.

-       Craft your policy like the ‘big boys’ do – Your business will not always be a startup therefore think like the big companies of this world when crafting your social media policy.  Ensure that the policy protects your company’s reputation and carries out its intended purpose of raising awareness of your brand.  Importantly, get legal support in crafting the policy; after all it is a legal document.

It’s a Consumers’ world; and Businesses live in it!

Gone are the days when businesses wield their power over customers.  Competition among like brands is high, brand distinction has created dissimilarities between companies and new age marketing has literally pitted businesses against each other as they compete for the consumers’ dollar.

Like it or not, this is the new world; the consumer’s world!   There is a new and improved customer with a more discerning taste with specific and defined preferences.  This customer is socially conscious and drawn to a business’s philanthropy and goodwill.  The customer is more tech savvy, engages in research prior to purchase and is influenced by newsmakers and thought leaders.  This is the new age customer.

So how do businesses, in particular small and start-up businesses, survive in this new environment? The answer is simple; businesses must become customer-centric i.e. create products for the customers instead of trying to find customers for the products they create.

Businesses that are customer-centric are bound to find success in their endeavours.

Graphic showing the shift in power from businesses to the customer (Image source: forrester.com)

The following are six tips for small and start-up businesses to create a more customer focused operation:

1.       Define your customer service strategy – Craft your customer service strategy by engaging your two main stakeholders in this process; your employees and your customers.  Find out what each segment expects and identify ways that the business can exceed those expectations.

2.       Stay connected to your customers – Keep an open line of communication between your business and your customers.  Set-up a customer contact system that includes a dedicated telephone line as well as 24/7 online support to ensure that your customers are able to contact you when product issues arise.  Address customer issues and don’t allow them to fall into a black hole.  You would have defeated the purpose of defining your great customer service strategy in step one.  Also, use tools such as email marketing, text messaging and social media platforms for formal communications with your customer groups.

3.       Construct your marketing campaign from the customers’ perspective – One of the most powerful words in marketing is ‘you’.   ‘You’ includes to the customer in the message. Angling your marketing campaign towards providing solutions for your customers’ needs and wants is a great way to appeal to not just existing but potential customers as well.

4.       Ask them what they think - Get your customer’s feedback and more importantly, use it!  The business will receive valuable insight and your customers will feel like part of your business.  Customers like to know that their opinion is valued.

5.       Institute a good customer relationship management programme – A good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programme not only collects vital customer data, it also provides information that the business can use to market to the customers. Additionally, the CRM programme can help to tier customers so that an effective and fair loyalty programme can be instituted.

6.       Link all customer-centric activities to your bottom line – A customer-centric company will inevitably become a financially successful company. Customers put their money where they mouth is, they do not mind paying a premium because they get great products and excellent customer support, their opinion is valued and they feel like part of the business.

Why integrating your marketing campaign is so important

The simple fact is that an integrated marketing communications campaign reaches each customer segment through different marketing channels at the same time.

An integrated marketing communications campaign represents a wholistic approach to marketing which is a good mix of traditional and non-traditional methods that feeds into and fuels the campaign. 

When marketing tools such as social media, digital media, trade and sales promotions and advertising (i.e. print, electronic & online) etc., is integrated, businesses improve their chances of achieving better results from their marketing activities.

  

Here are three benefits to using an integrated marketing approach to your small business:

1.       It reaches all customer sub-groups – Each channel that is used in the campaign extends its life and touches all sub-segments in the overall customer segment.  It is a fact that there are customer sub-groups that only receive information from one or a group of sources over another.  Utilizing myriad marketing channels (budget allowing) helps to reach the entire group and pulls the campaign together.

2.       It improves customer recall – Formal and informal surveys have proven repeatedly that the customer does not hear, see or feel a business’s messages the first time.  It usually takes up to fifteen runs on radio for the first commercial to be heard.  When the marketing campaign is integrated, repetition is high; something that is slightly heard or seen is reinforced when it is repeated either in print, online or electronically.  And when the campaign ‘comes to life’ for the customer… the experience is even more improved.

3.       You can track every marketing dollar and determine its effectiveness – As small and start-up business owners, the marketing budget is usually limited therefore care must be taken when funds are being dedicated to marketing.  The campaign must therefore provide a clear path to the customer.  Integrating your marketing programme makes it easier to track results and on each channel.  The results help businesses to determine which channel is more effective and where the money is best spent.