An often-overlooked step in the process is the first one, which is the easiest one: Claim your brand name on every platform. Open at least one account on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., under your company name and brand names. Claim your online real estate before someone else does. That’s really important so I’ll wait…there’s a very reason I made you do that.

The reason is squatters. Squatters will steal your brand names and either block you from your own names or, worse, begin posting as you and potentially do significant damage to your brand. So claim your space now and thank me later.

Most of the platforms have specific rules about squatting and many will help you reclaim your rightful names, but not all. To some it’s just a platform and whatever happens, well, happens. There are numerous examples of names being claimed and even abused. Look at this screenshot from Twitter carefully:

Pfizer’s real Twitter account is @pfizer_news. The guy, I won’t name him because I don’t want to help him and I don’t support this kind of pirating, has the Pfizer name. He doesn’t appear to be malicious but neither is he flattering. Don’t you want your online representation to be flattering? If you’re Pfizer don’t you want to control your own name?

If someone is only casually paying attention, which happens a lot on Twitter, wouldn’t it be easy for them to think this was Pfizer’s official account?

Here’s a shortcut to claiming your name. There are services, such as KnowEm, that you can pay to secure your name on hundreds of social media sites. It’s a good way to secure your name even on platforms you have no intention of using without having to do all the grunt-work yourself.

Finally, after you’ve secured your name go to each one and complete your profile. I know it’s a pain but the search engines are now indexing the social media platforms so this is a quick and easy way to support your brand and increase traffic to your (official) website.

It really boils down to two choices, you claim it or someone else will. So what’s it gonna be?

Steve

800-707-9150

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You may be confused about social media (SM), many business people are. There are literally hundreds of social media sites and sorting through them seems impossible. There’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, etc., and then there’s the ones with unusual names,  StumbleUpon or Posterous, to name two. No doubt, there are too many for a non-professional to evaluate and, since most SM sites are awash with non-customers for most businesses, why would anyone in a traditional marketing role take the time to review all those communities. So what should marketing professionals do about social media? Here’s my take:

1. Target your activities:

Information overload saps efficiency and limits productivity, that’s why many of us hate email. Take the time to investigate the top 25-50 social media sites and see if your company, your products, your competitors or your key industry words are prominent. Do a generic Google search for the same terms (company, product, competitors and you) just to see if you’ve missed anything. If any of the social media networks you evaluate have activity around your company, products or competitors, then join and monitor those networks. This approach let’s you focus on what’s important and weed out most of the “social media noise.”

2. Know who is talking about your brand:

You need to know who’s talking about you online and social media is the perfect mechanism. There are companies, such as Aligned Marketing (yes, that’s a shameless plug), that can break down the demographics of the people talking about your brand by gender, age and geography. If the demographics match your target audience then, again, you’ll need to pay close attention to those conversations and be ready to engage quickly, which brings us to the next point.

3. Engage the conversation:

It’s better to be proactive than it is to be reactive. Joining the online conversation allows you to speak directly with your target audience, your customers and your detractors. You can monitor the conversation. You can’t manage the conversation, per se, but you can insert your own perspective and, hopefully, influence the direction of the conversation. Engaging gives you the opportunity to react, share your side and, perhaps, steer a negative comment into a customer service success story before it becomes a trend.

4. Reporting:

Use your social media research and the available tools to capture relevant information. Organize that information and use traditional reporting tools, such as charts, graphs and PowerPoint, to combine both qualitative and quantitative analysis, to inform your organization. As the data increases you may find that even your most ardent critics will realize that spending a portion of your marketing budget to monitor online conversations is wise.

I may be wrong but, like it or not, I don’t think this stuff is going away anytime soon.

Steve

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