If you’ve read any of my posts this week, I’ve covered the absolute necessity of understanding your audience beyond demographics and the need for planning your social media presence out of launch mode. This post covers a case in point that has many lessons to be learned for individuals and companies looking to leverage the power of social internet marketing to grow their business and impact their markets.
Project Code Name: 50’s Diva Launch
Project Objectives: Social internet marketing strategy development for GenYGuide.com – the new Generation Y resource, community, hub for Gen Y expert Sarah Newton (aka Impact Agent 001 — more on that later)
Project Summary: Build the right social internet marketing presence, marketing plan, and campaign initiatives for the new Gen Y Guide. The following video is a summary of the case study that will be available in due time on the all new ImpactMarketingZone.com (in full detail).
(Video and Details Below Important Lessons)
Important Lessons to Learn
First, never jump into social media head first, you may just be on the shallow end of the pool, unable to recover from your injuries! Testing the waters, gathering Impact Agent Intelligence (more on this later too) about your audience, your business, and more is absolutely critical BEFORE you start planning and visualizing your massive social media take over. Ignoring this step or jumping straight into a system that some guru swears will make you “heaps of money” WILL have you chasing your social media tail for eternity… or, at least as long as your business survives this huge mistake.
Second, don’t skip the intelligence gathering process. Intelligence is power when it comes to building, planning, and deploying any online marketing activity. You must know your audience far deeper than just demographics or the data you’ve collected while list building and monitoring your sales funnel. It’s all about understanding every depth of your audience — behaviors, motivations, influences, environment, and much more. Remember: audience intelligence leads to intelligent decisions that will empower your online activities.
Third, in everything you do PEOPLE FIRST (that’s your audience), TECHNOLOGY SECOND (that’s the stuff the gurus declare as necessary). If you’ve done your due diligence in collecting intelligent information about your audience/market — you’ll understand what works, what doesn’t, and what direction YOU need to go in to truly leverage the power the social web offers your business. Without this mindset and intelligence, you’ll be chasing your social media tail, like a chicken with it’s head cut off.
Lastly, do the smart stuff before you build. Don’t put the cart before the horse, or the action before the planning. If you don’t take the time BEFORE, it will affect what happens AFTER you deploy your strategies. Don’t fall for the guru who tells you they have a “system” or a “blueprint” or some other lame, generic whatever that can help any and all businesses. If you’d done the intelligent stuff BEFORE you likely wont’ fall for that stuff and this point would be mute
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The Impact Tools Explained
In the video I covered tools like the Secret Agent Intelligence stuff and Impact Profiles and Impact Mapping. All of them have fun names, but they are serious tools that help guide. These are all tools my team uses with our clients to accomplish three things that NEED to happen BEFORE planning and building:
- Get to know your audience, stalk them (so to speak), understand them, dig deep into their world as it relates to your objectives.
- Get to know the current and potential landscape of online activities they are participating in. Yes, they may be on Facebook but what are they DOING there and WHY. Is there an opportunity to create a Blue Ocean or what other alternatives that are the best use of your resources to connect and engage with them.
- How does all this intelligence connect with your UNIQUE business, and business objectives. It all needs to line up and work together.
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Obviously this is a general break-down, what happens in the before and after may be different for every company and there is NO one-size-fits all solution. There are standards, there are principles, there are tactics — but the mind work that SHOULD happen before all this, is much more important to keep you on the right path, not only in the short-term, but down the road as technology changes… and it will change, it always does. Did I mention your audience will change too, and the world they live in, and everything else that matters… it’s inevitable.
Get off the treadmill and get started running the marathon that is social media success!
Check out Sarah’s new site, www.GenYGuide.com, while there is much more to come and additions to be made, I’m really proud of the work that’s been done and the solid direction Sarah is headed in creating a Gen Y revolution.
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… looking forward to connecting with you!
Maria
About the Author...
Maria Reyes-McDavis is a colossal geek brainiac, certified genius IQ with university degrees in Finance, Economics, Business Management and an MBA. Maria has served over 300 pro-level, digital marketing clients as founder of online marketing firm Digital Peas & Carrots. Maria is Founder and Editor of Hyphenated Americans, a conservative politics blog and Proverbs 31 Project an online women's ministry. Most importantly, Maria is a wife to her king, mother of 3, lover of basketball (Go Lakers & Clippers!), classic cars and is currently training for professional women's roller derby!
