When companies have more than one person involved with social media marketing content, it sometimes plays out like the 2004 Olympic Basketball team. Team USA had unquestionably the best roster in the games and was the clear favorite to win the gold. The team was lead by Tim Duncan, and featured Dwayne Wade, LeBron James and Amar’e Stoudemire (three of the most coveted free agents in this NBA off season).
Team USA’s first game was against Puerto Rico. A cadre of NBA players vs. tiny Puerto Rico; it should be an easy win, right? Puerto Rico won that game by 19 points. The bad times for Team USA didn’t stop there. They went on to lose two more games and had to settle for the bronze medal. This was not the ending we had envisioned.
How could this have happened? These were the best basketball players in the world. What went wrong?
Team USA was a group of highly talented individuals who were not playing as a team. This is how some social media marketing teams approach their online presence.
Standards need to be in place when you assemble your multi-person social media plan. Here are some things to consider:
1. Have a clear division of responsibility. If you have multiple people contributing content to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and LinkedIn, put one person in charge of each category. Content managers should contribute specific messages (marketing, HR, etc.). Select one person to respond to comments on your Facebook page. Perhaps you’ll have a person in charge of your Twitter feed, or make HR the sole caretaker for LinkedIn.
2. Have an editorial calendar. Create a document that specifies when messages are posted. For example, Mondays could be a day when you post a link to an article that deals with your industry. Tuesday may be the day of the week you feature a blog post on your site. Stick to this schedule, and don’t vary from it unless there is breaking news.
This will prevent three different people from posting something on a Facebook page within a four-hour period. Even though the various posts came from different departments, it matters not for the Fan. It comes from the same company. The Fan may consider this to be spam and become more likely to hide a feed.
3. Have a playbook in place. A playbook centralizes your marketing message. This document defines your primary value points, target audience and marketing strategy. Make sure that everyone involved in all aspects of marketing are fluent in this language. This helps form a choir of voices into one.
Don’t settle for the bronze. Work as a team.
