Social Media is a way of engaging your customers in open dialogue which can lead to serious ROE (return on engagement) if handled properly.  The idea behind it is creating real tangible relationships that can aid aspects of: public relations, customer service, perceived value, and of course the ultimate goal, sales. 

Before venturing out into the wilderness, prepare a plan of attack. A well thought out plan should minimize lost time, and provide clear direction for moving forward.  Here are a few things to sort out before jumping in:   

Audience – Who is buying your product (or who you want to buy it) and where do they hang out.  If you are a jewelry designer and believe that other creative types will be your major source of income I suggest looking into sites like Etsy.com.  You would then want to follow those same people on Twitter.  Wherever your customers are, be there too. 

Time Involvement – How much time do you have to devote to Social Media?  If you spend valuable time writing a blog entry, make sure to promote it properly.  For more on this topic, I suggest reading a guest blog post I’ve written for Web Shop Manager entitled “How to Title an eCommerce Website Blog Post, and Promote it too!” included in the series “Developing an eCommerce Blog.”

Who will Represent – Who in your company will represent the brand in the best light?  This should be a person that can develop relationships and shares the same core values as your brand.  If your brand is conservative, so should your representative.

Competition Recon Mission – The best way to learn what you like or dislike is to research the competition.  If you love that your competitors blog is featured on the homepage go ahead and adopt that.  Or perhaps you love the style in which they ‘tweet’ you can learn from that.  I solemnly swear that your retinas will not burn from looking at the competition.  I also want to make clear that you should learn and approve upon their efforts, not emulate them exactly.   

Be Engaging – The worst thing you can do is set up all these accounts and then let them sit there.  Rotting.  If you chose to use Twitter then use the search feature to see if you received any responses to your tweets.  You can then choose to follow that person, or at least respond to them.  Be active, interactive and sincere. 

Most of all have fun with this new technology.  You may find it a bit like a land rush, so stake your claim, carve out a niche and have fun experimenting.  If something isn’t working, move on to something else that is.  Whatever you decide to try, venture into it with sincerity, and with your brand’s core values in mind.  Everything else will shake out. 

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