I is for Identify: Part 2 Of A Social Media Series

Today’s post is brought to you by the Letter “I”.

Last week we published our first in a series that details a simple process for planning Social Media based on the acronym L-I-S-T-E-N. This week we move on to the second phase of the social media process: Identifying and Interpreting.

After you’ve done the critical first step of Listening – see part 1 – you now have the rather difficult task of sifting through all those tweets, all those posts, all those questions from all those conversations and interpreting them so that you can, in a very simple way, identify the following:

WHERE are the conversations taking place? What is the optimal social media mix for this particular challenge? What tools does this particular tribe prefer to use? Is it an older, professional crowd using LinkedIn and eMail? A younger, gaming crowd using microblogs? Or does the product have a visual aspect better suited to YouTube and Flickr? Here’s a great example of a concrete marketing association using the ‘How-To’ visual strengths of YouTube to drive click-throughs in the neighbourhood of 18%. A great example of picking up the right tool for the job.

WHEN is it taking place? You’re going to have to build a marketing calendar so Google’s Insight for Search or social monitoring tools like Radian6 are great places to identify the ebb and flow of conversation throughout the year.

WHAT’S the problem? This is the most important thing you need to interpret and identify. How can you ever hope to be of value to to a social community if you don’t know the problem they’re trying to solve? So what’s the conversation about? What are the hot topics? What are the threats and opportunities facing your brand here? It’s what we call ‘pulling the need’ and, as with any relationship, if you want it to be based on trust, advice & authority you need to figure it out. For example,

The need of a gaming crowd might be to simply brag about their high score,
The need of a group of parents making a buying decision might be reassurance that it’s ethical and healthy and
The need of a family taking a vacation might be to know what else there is to do in the area besides golf.

The idea is to identify needs that offer potential for a beneficial outcome for both you and the community.

WHO are the influencers? Find those folks who have a lot of followers and who share your cause or, at least, who have interest in it. (Hint: The best are ones who are already customers. More about this is in Step 6.)

Trying to go ahead and have a successful social media program without listening and without identifying the problem – well, it’s kind of like playing golf on a hole that has no flagstick; any shot will seem good but you’re really not going to get anywhere meaningful.

Written by Bob Nunn

Bob Nunn is Internet Marketing Consultant in Toronto and the founder of BrandMechanics. Bob has a successful track record of helping companies fine-tune their online marketing and getting their brands revved up. He has won over 40 marketing awards for his work in advertising, new media, email and more for clients such as Yellow Pages Group ‘The Find Engine’, Blockbuster ‘Guaranteed To Be There’, FutureShop ‘You’ll like what the future has in store.’ and 3M ‘Innovation’ amongst others.

Internet Marketing Consultant Toronto