On Tuesday night, a few colleagues and I attended a Sweets and Tweets event put on by social media consultant, Debbie Weil, where the featured guest was Gov 2.0 “guru” Mark Drapeau (aka @cheeky_geeky). The discussion was centered around how social networking is being used within the government both effectively and otherwise with a few other solid nuggets thrown in for good measure. I admit that I was somewhat surprised at how many different forms of social networking tools are currently being used by the various government agencies, ranging from wikis to Twitter-like apps. Even the National Weather Service is actively using social networking to support their mission of protecting life and property [which I admit I got a little geeked up about being a meteorologist myself].
It was also nice to hear Mark reiterate the basic fundamentals of social marketing, fundamentals that many of us forget on a daily basis, but are no different when developing any type of marketing campaign:
What is your overarching mission (objective)?
What specific goal are you trying to achieve that supports the mission with this campaign?
What specific tactics are you using to accomplish this goal?
Addressing these three questions before jumping into the social media waters would comprise developing a social media strategy. My officemate and I talk about this all the time. How often do you run into someone who has launched a Facebook page and can’t tell you exactly what purpose their Facebook page serves? Is it to build awareness? Generate leads? Connect with your customers? Is it just one cog in a very large campaign?
It’s basic marketing, right? So why do we so often forget?
Thanks for the reminder Mark.
