Page 116 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

through other channels. It’s worth noting that you can have multiple SMM voices,
some of whom can be people who currently are your brand marketers and PR rep-
resentatives. Their success, however, may require a change in how they’re used to
talking to the outside world, but that can be discovered only in time.

Over the last few years, some brands have been able to evolve their SMM voices
into brand voices. This is where the brand voice and the SMM voice have become
so similar that they can be combined. That’s fine as long as the voice continues to
be authentic, personally identifiable, conversational, and in tune with the ethos of
the social web. It’s important that the voice be personally identifiable because
there will always be cases in which conversations with consumers in social media
may need to be taken offline. In those cases, it helps for the consumer to know
that the person he or she is talking to via phone is the same person who responded
online. The Virgin Atlantic blog mentioned earlier is one example where the brand
voice and the SMM voices are coming together.

Outlining SMM Voice Objectives

When you’re defining your SMM voice, you need to consider what you’ll be using
the SMM voice for. Knowing the objectives that it serves and how it supports your
marketing and business efforts more broadly is instrumental. If you haven’t
defined the objectives for the SMM voice, don’t take up valuable time (and poten-
tially resources, too) in identifying that voice and putting a program around it.

Some of the more common objectives served by having an SMM voice include the
following:

» Providing industry and company insights to all stakeholders.
A lot of people are probably talking about your brand on the social web. Many
of them are probably forming strong opinions about your industry, your
company, and your brand, too. Some of these people may be very influential.
They could be key influencer bloggers, shareholders, customers, competitors,
or market analysts. An important objective for having an SMM voice is to
share your company’s own take on industry and company issues with the
broader world and negate any false or unfairly biased perspectives.

» Building awareness for your products and services.
Every month there appears to be a new social platform on which your brand
needs to have a presence. This may be Facebook, Tumblr (www.tumblr.com),
Pinterest (www.pinterest.com), Snapchat (www.snapchat.com), CafeMom
(www.cafemom.com), LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com), or Twitter

100 PART 2 Practicing SMM on the Social Web