A Social Media Maze or Leap of Faith: Where is your brand going?

Mazes are a blast, everyone runs around laughing and smiling not having a clue where they're going and loving every minute of it.  Mazes are so much fun that people are even willing to pay to go in get completely turned around, disoriented, feel really dumb and come back for more.

The thing about a maze is that they can go from being a ton of fun to pure hell in 2 min flat (have you ever had to go to the bathroom when you're lost in the middle of one?).  Where does the fun go when the sun goes down?  All of a sudden a sense of panic kicks in and everyones scrabbling for the exit cause there's something creepy (I won't say scary cause real MEN don't admit stuff like that) about being lost in a maze in the dark of night.

I'm hoping everyone can see where I'm going with this (hint: its got to do with companies/peoples on-line presence).  Is your social media presence just as confusing as a maze?  Look at your posts, blogs, wikis, status updates, forums, tweets, pins, pluses, how consistent are they?

Last week I posted about Google maps and receiving direction, this week I'm supporting and adding to it.  A simple way to remember some of these lessons is to put them in an acronym. And believe me you would have to be dumb as a fence POST to forget this one.

People - This is your target.  Remember a previous post discussing how to find your target? (maybe Lego or Ladders will trigger a few memories)  Discovering what engages the audience you're targeting allows you to adapt to their needs.  If you develop a forum for commercial realtors when your audience are more COLLECTORS than CRITICS or CONTRIBUTORS it won't do you a bit of good, but if you create informative posts for your audience to share, all of a sudden your audience of COLLECTORS eat it right up and are continually coming back for more.

Objectives - What are your goals? (<-- repeat from last week / the addition -->) Is your intention to get People giving feedback, or do you want them spreading your message in promotion?  Maybe you want to market your brand better?  What ever it is YOU must decide what you want to accomplish, this has to be the FIRST step when approaching any form of social media marketing (remember this applies both personally and professionally).

Strategy - This directly ties in to your People and Objectives.  What do you want to convey to your audience?  How do you want them to react?  What form of social media will you utilize?  If your audience and feedback objectives are met from the benefits of blogging then start a blog.  If you need feedback and your audience are contributors start a forum.  Your strategy provides you with a plan of attack and gives you direction if things start to go off the rails.

Technology - Refers to the tools you're going to use.  Believe it or not, not everyone responds well to social networks (I'm talking the Google+'s, Facebook's, Twitter's), some simply prefer blogs or wiki's.  Wherever your target is that's where you go.  If you go looking for sharks in the mountains you'll be sorely disappointed.

Social media can be so beneficial to brands, companies, and personally.  It has the ability to transform peoples lives and alter brand image.  EVERYONE must realize that jumping into social media takes responsibility and strategy.  Companies can find themselves battling to try and regain control of social media gone wrong, just ask Shell about an open caption contest (it happened to be fake but grabbed everyones attention, these situations actually happen and can be a companies worst nightmare).

The reality is that once you jump there's no turning back, you can change direction but there are no guarantees.

ANY comments, followers or shares are ALWAYS welcomed.


Speaking of jumps.