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When It Comes To Social Media, Many Marketers Jump The Gun

This article is more than 10 years old.

Greenpeace's organized brandjacking of Nestle SA's Facebook page is making CMOs afraid of social media. There is good reason for this: The power has clearly turned to those that participate, and now detractors are starting to organize using the same organized marketing campaigns that companies create.

Greenpeace takes issue with Nestle's purchase of palm oil from farmers who are destroying forests. The organization prepared a frontal assault with prepared assets such as off-brand logos, detrimental videos, and called for their Twitter followers to attack Nestle's Facebook page. Nestle, the giant food company, was unprepared. It apparently lacked qualified community managers, a community policy and an advocacy program. Proof of the power of online communities: Today the Swiss company said it will work with a nonprofit organization to probe the firm's palm oil suppliers.

Many companies jump into social marketing before they are ready. The opportunities to connect with customers, learn from them and benefit from word-of-mouth marketing are irresistible. But CMOs must first establish the internal resources and processes that are necessary for their companies to be successful in social marketing.

Here is a checklist to help marketers prepare for social media interactions:

--Have a strong understanding of your customers: Brands must have "socialgraphics," the measurement of how your customers and consumers are using social technologies

--Do a social media audit: Who in your company is already using social tools, where are they and what is their status? Get the same information about your competitors.

--Develop business processes: Develop a triage for how information from different business units and geographies will be cascaded to certain groups in real time.

--Create a crises response plan: Incidents move faster in social media. Develop scenario planning. For instance, how would your company react if some of its products turned up in an unflattering YouTube video on a Friday evening before a three-day weekend?

--Create qualified roles: Brands need at least two specialists dedicated to social marketing: the social strategist and the community manager.


--Develop the right organizational model: Social media spans multiple business units, so a new organizational model will appear--even informally. There are at least five organizational models, including organic, distributed, coordinated, multiple hub-and-spoke and holistic. Organizational models around social will depend on size and culture.

--Have education programs: Don't expect employees to grasp new forms of communication quickly, especially disruptive ones like social tools. Develop internal methods for sharing and experimentation. Allow internal experts and peers to share their expertise and experiences.

--Create a measurement strategy: New media requires measurement. The old adage holds true: "You can't improve what you can't measure."

--Have the mindset to "fail fast." Plan for mistakes to be made. Encourage active sharing around "opportunities missed" without being punitive. New practices require risk and change--embrace this as your customers likely already have.

Social marketing isn't anything like traditional advertising and direct marketing. It is relationship-driven. Engaging with customers, and critics, creates significant changes in the way people think, act and measure success within organizations. To learn more about getting prepared internally, watch our no-cost recording outlining in detail the resources needed for success.

Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist, is partner, customer strategy, at Altimeter Group.