Just getting started with social media? Try the POST method

What do most people and companies do wrong when they jump on the social media bandwagon? They lack an overall strategy to get the best results. They are missing their key objectives and they don’t know who they are targeting with their campaign. A couple of years ago market research firm Forrester coined the term POST which is a planning methodology for organizations in starting with social media marketing.

The POST method stands for “People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology”, and this method helps to address the burning question of “should my company have a social media marketing strategy?” and “why aren’t we getting any results from our corporate blog?”. The POST method is also explained in great detail in the book Groundswell.

In a nutshell, this is what the POST method is about:

People
This is the first and most important part of the POST method – reaching targeted customers. Do you know who they are? What are their demographics and their interests? Which social media channels are they active on? If you want to reach professional business people, on which networks are they active? If you are targeting the tourism market, are their any tourism social media channels?

Objectives
What do you want to accomplish with your social media marketing campaign? Do you only want to increase your reputation online? Build recognition and trust? Do you want your customers to talk about your brand online? It is very important to decide on your objectives and how it can benefit your other marketing efforts.

Strategy
How will things be different in your company after you have launched your social media marketing campaign? Are you looking for a two-way relationship with your best clients? Do you want to get people to start talking and engaging with each other about your products and services? Are you looking for a focused group of people to help you generate new ideas for your marketing and business efforts?

Technology
After you have decided on the people, objectives, and strategy, it is time to research and decide which social media channels you will be using. If you are going to start blogging, what blogging software are you going to use? If you are going to use video marketing, are you only going to focus on YouTube or other popular video sharing channels?

Removing the guesswork
Too many people start with social media marketing focusing first on the technology side of it. “We need a Twitter profile”, sounds like a good idea, but does your target market use Twitter? In my opinion, using the POST method explained above will help you remove some of the guesswork.

Image: Charlotte Gilhooly (via Flickr).