What Happens Online … Stays Online.

Social media is here to stay. Whether your business hasn’t quite embraced it yet or you’re fully integrated into the social media landscape, a researched, in-depth strategy is key to navigating the ever-changing world of social media. As with your business strategy, a social media strategy will get your brand successfully from point A to B and, when executed properly, it can be the difference between new fans and increased brand-love and a full-on PR crisis.

At this point, the success social media can bring to businesses has been clearly demonstrated by brands doing it right. Whether it’s Oreo jumping into action when the Super Bowl lost power or two major airlines playfully gaining new followers and brand love by tweeting together, social media has tremendous power.

The flip-side of all that brand-love, and a major component of a social media strategy, is the crisis plan. The need for precautionary measures within your plan has been demonstrated over and again by firestorms like what happened to Chick-fil-A  last year and more recently, the HMV layoffs and last week’s Applebee’s PR nightmare.

Raves and rants are spreading faster than you can turn on your computer and it is essential for a social media strategy, complete with a crisis plan, to be in place for your business. A social media plan will help you navigate the tricky, by-the-second social media landscape. Here are some examples that should be considered within your plan:

• What types of posts/tweets should we share?
• How often should we share /respond?
• How should we handle questions about our products/services?
• How should we handle / respond to negative feedback?
• What if competitors interact with us on social media? What if it’s negative?
• How can we interact with more fans and increase our awareness online?

When creating your social media strategy, it’s essential for your to get help from a communications expert. As demonstrated in the out-of-control examples above, social media poses too much of a risk for you to go without expert advice. If you’d like help in creating a social media strategy for your business, click here.