I recently discovered a blog that I really enjoy - Pam Moore’s The Marketing Nut.
With her permission I’ve excerpted parts of her Social Media: A Little Less Talk and a Little More Action Please. The full post is well worth the read, but I want to focus on her “Too Much Yappin’” Test.
To set the stage Pam asks:
Seriously folks, are you drinking too much of the social conversation Kool-aid? Do you really think that all you have to do is be social and the Twitter bird is going to deliver a basket of ROI to save your butt and justify all that yappin’ you’re doin’?
More action please!
If yer “yapper” is yappin’ your audience should be clickin’! Inspire your audience to action at every turn. As Brian Solis states “the social currency of online marketing is action.” If your audience is not inspired to take action on your behalf then what is it all for?
Relevancy is a requirement to inspire and connect. Yappin’ is good but only if it’s inspiring others to yap about it! Take the quick test below to see if it might be time to shut yer yapper for a bit and figure out how to deliver real value to your audience.
Too Much Yappin’ Test:
Who are you yappin’ with and to?
Who do you talk to in social media? Are you talking to people who will help you meet your business goals and objectives?
What are you yappin’ about?
Is it relevant? Do a good look through your tweet stream, Facebook wall, LinkedIn discussions, etc. How hard do you have to dig to find content from you that provides value? Are you the root source of content that educates, inspires and connects?
Is your audience engaged?
How are they responding to your questions, posts and tweets? Do they answer the questions you ask on Facebook, LinkedIn,etc.? Are you getting retweeted often and by whom?
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So how did you do? Do you like your answers?
Look, everyone wants to play in the social media pool because no one wants to be considered a dinosaur. But before you spend any time and energy doing so (worse yet before you tell your Reps to do so) you need to have a plan otherwise you are a yapper. Here are some very basic considerations:
- Who is the perfect buyer for what you sell?
- Where are they “swimming” in the social media pool? (Linkedin, Quora, Focus.com, Twitter, etc.)
- What are they talking about?
- What content do you and your team have at hand that will add value to their online conversations?
- What is your strategy for systematically engaging with them and, better yet, getting them to engage with you?
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Social media is the new, bright, shiny toy but it takes some thought and an investment in time to drive sales results not just social activity.
Let’s say I am your perfect buyer and you find me on twitter.
Want to engage with me, first take a look at my Twitter stream (as it looks to me) to see what I’m already consuming. What topics do I care about enough to tweet about and what topics/articles interest me enough to RT them?
It's all out there for the world to see - so go see it! Then use that information to be interesting when you reach out to me. I love vanilla in my ice cream, but not in the sales pitches I receive!
So, do you and your organization have a strategy or are you just yappin’?