A successful social media marketing campaign requires commitment, patience and stated objectives. As more companies enter into social media marketing, it is helpful to look at their mistakes to educate others on what not to do. I read an interesting article on http://www.toprankblog.com/ about Best and Worst Practices for Social Media Marketing.
There’s two points I will add to that list:
Not staffing appropriately
Actively listening and building relationships with communities is a full-time job. Also, its imperative to ensure community managers have the skill sets needed to articulate their objectives for social media in addition to utilizing tools that will resonate with their audience.
Not having a mechanism to assess ROI
CEOs that ultimately give the green light to pursue social media marketing are concerned with the bottom line. Its essential that a social media strategy includes mechanisms to assess business value. It might be a value placed on increased product awareness, solid sales leads or cost savings due to a reduction in support staff due to social media tools. ROI is easier to obtain if there is a stated goal for the social media campaign. Regardless of how value is determined, social media needs to be validated as a profitable marketing channel.