This is part of the series “Creating Social Media Value”.
The first step in creating social media value is to understand what it means to be “present in the marketplace”.
The marketplace of commerce has and continues to shift on-line.
While you may have an off-line presence the marketplace will not hear
or find you unless you are also on-line.
Presence is more than having your profile in relevant networks or having a blog or web site.
Your web presence is about how well you organize, administer and manage your presence in relevant places.
Organizing your presence, whether individually or collectively, can
only be done if you know where you should be and for what purposes. If
your presence is not in the right places then the market will not “see”
you. If you are not enhancing your presence with relevant content then
the market will not see or hear of your value. Organizing your
presence requires learning how to use relevant technology and
determining where you and your organization should to be present.
Organizing your presence requires learning “who, where, when, what,
why and how” your market is organized on-line. Markets have become
self organized in communities whose content is in context to the
markets needs and wants. Not being present in these communities and
engaging in the conversations means you will not been heard or seen.
After you organize personal and organizational presence on-line
then comes the task of administering your presence. Administration is
defined as the universal process of organizing people and resources
efficiently to direct activities toward common goals and objectives.
Common business goals and aims should be for serving a market, creating
a differential and engaging in relevant relations with other businesses
or people you aim to serve.
Too many people and organizations fail to organize and
administrate their presence on-line and then they never get any real
traction with their market. Jumping in here and there is not being
organized and not planning with a purpose is not managing anything. New knowledge of how to organize and administer on-line presence is required.
How To Manage and Administer On-line Presence
The on-line world can seem complex and confusing for those whose
only experience in management and administration is off-line. The
confusion comes from the lack of knowledge, experience and the
vernacular used to describe the on-line world dynamics. The image in
this post has a wordel (a word cloud) with relevant words used to
define the knowledge domain of the on-line world. Some of the same
terms are used in reference to off-line knowledge domains but the words
have different context in the on-line world. Some of the other terms
used are completely foreign to the off-line world.
In order to effectively manage and administer your on-line presence
you must either learn what the terms and technology mean by yourself or
hire someone who does and who can transfer their knowledge effectively.
Either way learning and acquiring new knowledge is the first step to
effective management and administration of your on-line presence.
Part 1 to creating social media value is vital to the success of the
other related processes. Without organizing, managing and administering
your on-line presence effectively it becomes very difficult to listen,
learn, think, plan, engage and measure your effectiveness. It would be
wise to do part 1 right the first time otherwise you end up doing the
wrong things and doing them wrong. Results come from doing the right
things and doing them right.
To say this isn’t important is like saying you don’t want anyone to
know what value you have to offer the marketplace. If someone tells you
these task are easy and won’t take time then they do not have the
knowledge, experience or understanding needed to advise you correctly.
Your presence has to do with everything and to ignore it is to discount
everything that drives your business.
Is your presence relative to your market? How would you know unless you knew how to ask.
Part 2 (Listening & Learning) will be discussed tomorrow.