If you’re not incorporating social media tactics into your communications strategies, you may be missing an opportunity to share your message with a more targeted audience, gain valuable information about your core demographic and generate additional coverage beyond traditional print, broadcast and online outlets.Here are three simple ways to enter a new universe of social networks:Create Facebook and/or MySpace profiles for your company. This allows you to create a persona for your company — you can actually give it an age, interests, etc., that correspond with your target. By better relating to them, you can begin an online dialogue. Videos, images, press releases, relevant news and information can also be posted.Create a Twitter account for your company as a way to stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. Twitter is a good place to post links to press releases, media coverage and other relevant news by driving "followers" to specific urls. See how it works.In your online pressroom, develop an interactive blog with relevant news about your company. This online hub for all social media activity should link to your social media pages. Videos, images and podcasts can be posted, and the blog would be searchable via Google Blog searches, Technorati, etc.
Want to learn more about social media? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, is a great place to start.
Now, how do you ensure the comments and postings about your company both from your own staff and from customers don’t spin out of control, creating negative publicity? See next month’s Creative Strategies for insights on monitoring your social media campaign.