Tip 1: Listen
Whatever you decide to do with social media, reality is that people are talking and creating content for you, about you, about your brand and products on the Internet. They rate, comment, provide pictures, videos, they tag you, they Twitter your name. A good start would be to listen to what they’re saying. This will help you understand how you can react and position your brand in this ecosystem. On top of that, it’s also your best focus group ever and you can definitely leverage the information they create in your product creation, customer services, brand positioning, pricing…

Do you know how many videos are tagged with your name on Youtube? Have looked at your FlickR presence? Is your website Digged? There’s more than a facebook fan page out there.

Tip 2.  Say thank you
Mention them in your newsletters, facebook pages, blog… and encourage your visitors to visit their sites. Be part of the conversation. Leverage those “creators” to create content that speak about you and increase your online presence.

Tip 3.  Show some personality
You’re brand has a unique set of characteristics that make it different from the competition and appeal to consumers. Always remain unique and true to your brand DNA and be sure to deliver a useful value for your audiences. Enhance their social media status by giving them assets to associate with your brand and benefit from your brand characteristics and values.

Tip 4.  Seed. Seed. Seed.
Understand what’s going on online, where you can fit, create some original content and seed, seed, seed. Instead of buying banners, have a community manager to engage visitors and fellow bloggers in your conversation.

Tip 5.  Let it grow
Did you know that it takes 6 to 8 months for a banana tree to make a fruit?* Well. It is just the same with social networking strategies. Having a sustainable online presence doesn’t happen overnight. You must establish a strategy that will generate long-term results.

BONUS Tip:  Commit!
“If you’ve only budgeted 2 months to be available to our community, we’re only going to give you 2 seconds of our time…at best.”  -Amanda Mooney, 23, Chicago Listen to her.  She’s right.

After all, this is not about promoting products and offers.  This is about creating a grassroots movement around your brand.

*Can anyone confirm this information?

3 commentslatest by Isabelle, Oct 15th at 8H19

Last week I came across this great example of a social media initiative: “The “One-Dress” has been collectively designed and created by over 1000 women from across the globe via online social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, ASmallWorld, Twitter, etc.  Over the course of eighteen months these women were asked to share information about their lifestyle, dreams and desires as relates to one simple – but truly important piece of clothing – the DRESS. By sharing their likes and dislikes in fabrics, colors, necklines, silhouettes, seasons, etc. the “One-Dress” was conceived, incubated and now released into the universe.”

What I find really interesting is that the product itself has been created directly with the consumer via social media. The media here stands for what it is a media. The strength comes from the concept and the strategic use of it not from the technology itself which is something I truly believe in.

On top of that we can see in the tactics use that the fundamentals are here: there is a true content, they used relevant contexts and everything is made for an easy contamination.

In terms of communication message and branding we also come back to core basics: they created something unique AND useful.

A big BRAVO!

The “One-Dress” project was curated by Creative Director, Malcolm Harris of Mal Sirrah, Inc.  A portion of all profits will go to benefit the following organizations/charities:  Womankind Worldwide and KIVA.ORG
http://one-dress.com/

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CloudRaker, in collaboration with Les Recycleurs, celebrates “Moving Day”  in its latest eBay campaign.

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