10 Upcoming Posts for Companies Expanding their Social Marketing

Large or small, one tactic we advise our clients to pursue is developing and publishing against an editorial calendar. This helps different people in your organization prepare thoughtful insight in a well-organized fashion, in addition to simply commenting on the topical industry news of the day.

So, as we weave our way through the rest of the 3rd quarter, we thought we would practice what we preach, and lay out the roadmap for our primary content. After speaking with clients and potential clients, this list seems to cover most of the questions facing folks who are just starting to own their company's social marketing programs.

We'll be publishing about 1x a week, and using stories and examples from local companies. If you want to add an anecdote or experience, please email us.

1. The Choice - Agency vs In-House
Social is no longer a “nice to have” part of your Integrated Marketing Plan. The first important question departments have to ask is whether they have the talent in house, or do they need to outsource community management to an agency. Here are some things to think about, and how a couple of companies have made that decision.

2. Cleaning Up or Starting Over

By now, almost every company has some sort of presence somewhere online. Here are some things to think about when learning about your existing presence, and deciding whether to consolidate the channels or just blow everything up and start from scratch.

3. The Budget Question

Everyone has a CFO to explain the spending to. Whether it’s headcount, ad agencies or creative development, you need to come up with a reasonable estimate for how much to ask for. Here is some guidance for that deck for the person with the checkbook.

4. Picking a Starting Line for Your Program - The Initial Audit

The old saying holds true - If you don’t know where you are, you can’t get to where you are going. Here are some expensive, moderate, cheap and free tools you may want to look at.

5. The Training Process

Seminars, agencies, consultants, blogs, etc... Everyone has an opinion on what you need to know to be a successful social media marketer. Here's what to look for in a community management team, and what you need to teach them.

6. The Planning Process - Where to begin?

You wouldn’t show up for a TV shoot without a script, so why start a social campaign without a blueprint? We’ll go through some things you need to think about when integrating social into your overall marketing plan.

7. 57 Channels and Nothing’s On

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Slideshare, Flickr, etc....How do you possible choose? We'll go through a few tips for prioritizing.

8. Generating Momentum Internally

The beginning of every program relies on buy-in from your own employees. Here are some ways other companies have gotten internal involvement from day one.

9. Creating Benchmarks

What does progress look like? How do you know if you are attracting the right fans? We’ll go through a few ways to develop metrics and evaluate your success rate.

10. Harnessing the Love of your Customers

Whether you realize it or not, you have super-fans out there. Here’s how to find and reach out to them.

If you have other topic suggestions, or want to contribute your own experience, just let us know.