Doing Social Media Optimisation (SMO) Properly

Targeting social media, and in particular twitter, has fast become this season’s must-have accessory.  Evidence of this can be found across the social networks which now play host to a graveyard of corporate Facebook & twitter pages, pages that were once in vogue, left to fallow.  Why is this happening?

In part, each of these networks has its day, it’s moment of glory.  When in their ascendancy they experience an increased share of air-play and, as a result, you can see a gaggle of grey-haired execs licking their lips at the easy-spoils to be had at each of these online watering holes, or so they think.

And so some big brands, with big marketing teams, get the orders from on-high to have a social media presence, a Facebook page is created and voila, in less than a few days the appetite of the execs has been satisfied. 

This is probably an all-too-familiar story and it’s little wonder why they haven’t succeeded.  The approach needs to be reversed.

Targeting Your Audience with Social Media Optimisation

The first question to ask is, where are your audience?  If they don’t exist online, don’t waste your valuable efforts. 

Next, where do they exist? It’s likely the community is already established and you just need to tap into it.  If that’s the case, what do you add?  Turning up at someone else’s bash with nothing to offer, apart from corporate messages, would be like turning up at a dinner party empty handed and talking about yourself all night – you’ll soon lose the audience!

Most importantly, how do you engage the community?  For your SMO to succeed there needs to be intrinsic value to your existence.  That works best when you have diverse content – offers, competitions, applications or simply the opportunity of engagement & participation for your customers.  If you open yourself up to the community and give them the chance of real-time engagement, it’s likely you’ll succeed. 

Your SMO will gain traction far beyond that of a campaign which is heavily pushed by your in-house team/agency.  This may not sit comfortably with most but if embraced, is likely to be the difference in big success or just getting by.

For Jet2.com, a number of these elements were considered by homejames to cultivate what is fast-becoming an excellent tool for talking with its customers.  With around 2,000 twitter followers in a short space of time, Jet2’s ability to put itself in the same room as its audience has allowed engagement beyond what you would normally expect of an online-only business.  This new dimension is helping to shape the future of the business and it’s hoped SMO will help to improve its customers’ experience of this forward-thinking brand.

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