5 Tips to Enhance Your Social Media Presence

After analyzing the presence of social media in more than 50 cooperate and non-profit organizations for my job at Northwestern Alumni Office, I feel a strong impulse to share my learning and give some advice. I know most people, no matter how much they are into the social media business, would not like to read almost each single post from 50 Facebook pages. My wild guess is…if you are not the person who writes every Facebook post or Twitter tweet of your company, you probably have never read all of these posts of your own business. OK. You can’t wait, can you? Here you go:

Post beautiful pictures about your products, animals who need to be adopted or your campus! Your posts are for humans, and humans are visual animals! (Don’t ask why Pinterest is getting popular anymore…) If you want your followers to know that your company has a new CSR initiative of helping children in the inner cities, please don’t post the first paragraph of your press release on your social media pages! Give your readers a picture of a smiling kid with an introduction of less than 140 characters (The Twitter rule applies to every social media platform). Trust me, the child’s smile would work much better than a bunch of rhetorical words.

Be personal. Again, Facebook is not somewhere to release your press release. It’s true that you represent an organization; it is also true that social media began with interpersonal communication. If you, as an organization, want to leverage social media magnetism, follow the rule and talk like a PERSON. If you are a fashion brand, “talk” like a young lady who tries to make herself beautiful everyday. If you are a college, “talk” about what college students care about: finals, commencement, or a new coffee shop where they would like to spend their afternoons.You’d better never talk like you are “offering” something great and your followers should pay for it with both money and gratitude. It’s you who should show gratitude for all the attention and followers you get. So, make your audience’s lives happier,prettier and easier with your posts.

Be consistent over your different social media platforms. I’ve seen organizations act like two totally different people on Facebook and Twitter: one is charming and intelligent, the other one is like a loser who has lost all  interest in life. Brands should always act like a woman in love, who tries to show the best side of her to her crush. So dress up for every occasion because you never know when your customers will be viewing your page. Don’t go out, or open your account on a new social media platform, if you are not ready to show your best side.

No more than 10 posts or tweets a day. Even if you are an attractive and sexy 20 something, do not walk around your secret crush’s window more than 10 times a day. It will lead to beauty fatigue and it only takes his one click on “unlike” or “unfollow”, and you are gone forever.  Less than 5 Facebook posts and 10 tweets is a good limit. After all, you don’t have so much information to share, do you? Too many posts or tweets are as annoying as spam emails.

Be a listener. There is a lot of advice telling you how to “talk” on social media platforms, but not how to “listen”.  If you go to some top brands’ Facebook or Twitter pages, you will find that they spent a lot of time answering questions or replying to posts from their followers. In a word, they listen. There was a famous case about how Chipotle avoided a PR disaster by quickly responding to a tweet about its failure to inform consumers about some of its ingredients. Don’t just re-tweet or “like” posts that mention you, please. When your followers bother to type your name in their posts, they don’t expect you to make them “famous” by retweeting their post; they did that to start a conversation with you, and you should feel grateful for their interest and efforts. If you are popular, like Starbucks, it may take you a long time to reply to every mention. So missing one or two may not matter too much for you. But it matters to that particular customer. 

     Some of my advice may not seem new to you; but this insight is generated from comprehensive research. As a Master’s student, who concentrates on Internet Marketing and Market Research, conclusion from data analysis is vital for me. I cannot accept people who just walk into the conference room and exclaim, “You know what? I am gonna trust my gut to initiate a new social media strategy and spend the 100,000 dollars!” Thanks to MedillIMC, who did a good job shape me from  a “free spirited” person to a data-driven, consumer centered marketing professional.

Katie Li is a current graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program, with 5 year work experience for Microsoft and Ogilvy in China. Katie decided to move to the U.S., when the death of her lifetime icon Michael Jackson revived her long-time dream of living in the U.S. Katie aims to find a job in the Internet Marketing and Global Marketing industries after graduation. She shares her learning, interest and passion towards her profession and life through @iamkatieli on Twitter and http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiewenli on LinkedIn. 

Be the Change You Want to See In Your World

We’ve all heard the old adage ‘What’s mine is yours.’ As an aspiring brand manager within the packaged food and restaurant space, I decided to think of it in a way that we are taught to think at Northwestern University – from the customer’s point of view. In that case then, it would read more like ‘What’s yours is mine.’ But just how well are we as marketers making the issues of the consumer our issues in the organization?  And by issues, I don’t mean product-related needs, I mean issues – the hard-core, societal issues that affect each and every one of us and the communities within which we live.

The society we live in today is unfortunately dealing with nationwide crises like childhood obesity and child/adult hunger. Our communities are in desperate need for our help. The call to action couldn’t be any clearer. The time is now to take these serious issues and turn them into meaningful philanthropic programs within our organizations. As food marketers, we need to think about how we can truly adopt CSR programs into our organizations while contributing to the health and well-being of our communities. It could be through the donation of excess food, free workshops on healthy eating, volunteering at shelters and Food Banks, or a variety of other nutrition-related activities. But the challenge is that these programs can no longer just be a line of copy we write on our websites and expect customers to swoon over. Customers will call us on our bluff if we don’t show authenticity and belief in the cause we are promoting. By making consumers’ issues our issues is to weave these into the fabric of our organizations and recreate a focus from the inside-out.

Restaurant operator Darden Restaurants was recognized last month by NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams for their efforts to make a difference in their local Orlando community through their “Harvest” program. Darden, who owns well known brands like Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Long Horn Steakhouse, started their local philanthropic program in 2004 after employees at their restaurants started donating excess food to local food banks and hunger relief organizations. The program has been successfully employed throughout the entire organization where processes have been adopted by their 1900 locations to safely handle, package and store the food before it gets picked up by food bank partners. The food is then transported to local charities including the Boys and Girls Club of America afternoon programs where kids who don’t have easy access to nutritious foods are treated to balanced meals from these restaurants. President and COO of Darden Restaurants, Drew Madsen, admits that while it would be cheaper to just throw the food away, they see it as their company’s mission to nourish the community and this is evident in the dedication that Darden Restaurant employees have in making the philanthropy their own personal mission.

Get your organization thinking about promoting healthy lifestyles, donating excess food, teaching the youth about healthy food decisions or other ways to make a difference in your community today by following these three easy tips:

1.    Think locally

A great way to get started is to identify ways that your organization can make an impact within your local communities. If the philanthropy you identify is food or health related, start with local food banks, homeless shelters, local Boys and Girls of America chapters and other organizations that could truly benefit from the excess product and donations that you can provide.

2.    Unify the organization around the cause

The philanthropy needs to be worked into the entire fabric of the organization and customers need to feel the authenticity of the company’s passion for the cause. It cannot be something you do for show and consumers will know the authentic cause from the fake cause. From top-down and bottom-up, the entire organization needs to be aligned around promoting, believing and acting for the cause.

3.    Follow regulations for donating food

If you choose a path to donate excess food to charities, it will be critical to ensure that there are strict policies in place to follow ‘sell by’ and ‘use by’ regulations. The food that you do donate needs to be in compliance with health codes in order to keep all those involved healthy. Most importantly, give excess food that will promote healthy and nutritious food choices for all, don’t give food that just contributes to the health problems of our society.

 


Tara Gupta is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and spent six years in interactive strategy and user experience design.  Tara is passionate about brand management in the CPG space and health & fitness. Tara will be graduating in December 2012. 
Follow Tara on Twitter @tbg1230 or on LinkedIn