• Many organizations are jumping the gun on service selection and missing valuable opportunities to tap into conversations their consumers are having about them.
• Companies are struggling to harness real benefits from social media because they dive into content and engagement strategy without spending the appropriate amount of time on social media service selection.
• After organizations have selected the appropriate social media services, clients fail to understand best practices for participating in conversations and therefore are unable to optimize their success on each service.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• Conventional wisdom dictates that you should pick the social network where you have the greatest subscriber base to reach, but this is irrelevant. Organizations need to consider all the social media services available when selecting services, to ensure they are optimizing their social media strategy and interacting with the right people.
• In today’s social media landscape there is a wide variety of social media services to choose from. Services range from hot micro-blogging services, like Twitter, to more niche social multimedia services, like Flickr or Vimeo.
• Each department should manage its set of relevant services regardless of platform. For example a marketing manager should manage all social media services in marketing, rather than have one person manage all Twitter feeds, one person manage all Facebook pages, etc.
• The services your organization selects shouldn’t operate as islands. Consider not only how the services will fit with each other, but also how they will fit with existing channels. Use a market coverage model to ensure the services you select are complementing each other.
• The landscape for social media services changes rapidly. It is essential to conduct an audit of services to maintain an optimal mix of services. Conduct the audit semi-annually for best effect.

Impact and Result

• Learn about the importance of choosing the correct services to ensure you are reaching your consumers and not wasting time playing with the wrong people.
• Understand the business use cases for each service and best practices for using them.
• Leverage different social media services to create a market coverage model that balances social media services with your products/services and business objectives.
• Identify the risks associated with specific platforms and ensure IT works to mitigate them.
• Create a plan for conducting a Social Media Service Audit to stay on top of changing trends.