When we  start a Social Media program for anyone, we have you (business or brand) answer this question: “Why do people like me?”

Is it your strong focus on customer service, your creativity, a lovable mom n pop brand, or prices that can’t be beat?

While effective social media is about trusting your gut, there is a a fair amount of homework you should do prior to  engaging with your consumers.  In short: Be careful.  (Witness some disasters).

Being confident in your brand and showcasing reasons people like you, is a good starting point.  A focus on conversation, rather than a soapbox for you to advertise your specials 12 times a day, is a general rule of thumb to help engage ambassadors at an organic level.

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Since we are research junkies at heart, a key adPioneers’ strength is helping identify this message and the market — it starts with these key steps:

Listening: Using online listening and monitoring tools, we track tens of millions of  conversations and instances online, associated with keywords specific to the brand, product or service.

Reporting:  We distill the findings, trends, analytics, qualitative social media conversations into an executive report.

 

This report helps provide the important initial benchmarks  to begin making an impact in our next stage.

 

(For the next in this series check out Stage 2: Setting the Stage.)