• Classrooms

Social media follows a cycle that is oft repeated:

Pre-launch: The listening phase
The listening phase is omnipresent throughout the lifespan of social media engagement as you have to listen closely to all the conversations on social media to gather trends, responses and views of individuals on your product, industry and even category. This phase is most emphasized, though, at the start of your social media campaign.

This is because before one can engage in conversations, one needs to know and better understand who are the people who are conversing and what kind of disposition they already have towards the brand, product or category as well as what or who influences them on social media. This process is very much like connecting the dots and building a social map of all those things that matter to your brand on social media.

Yes, it’s a time-consuming activity but it is a must as in the lifecycle of a brand the listening activity could lay the building blocks of a good social media campaign.

Startups can definitely use social media to gauge market response or even before they launch their startup to measure market pulse. Users on social media are far more vocal than in real life and the impulse to tweet is easier than speaking at length and hence it’s possible that you will get a lot more feedback than you imagine.

Beta test+launch: The learning & insight phase
During a beta test for a product or service, the entrepreneur is looking to learn the consumer psyche and tune his product for the final launch. He is typically unsure of his offering and also a little nervous as he is unsure of the market reaction as well. This phase can make or break the product’s fortunes. Social media helps in gathering early adopters who are the first users of the product and could be the best advocators for the product at the time of launch. The toughest part of this process is to get these early adopters to even try your product for free, let alone use it for long or even recommend it. It is important that one ensures these early adopters are given due importance and all their feedback is duly recognized, if not incorporated into the product. Be persistent in your approach to get these early adopters on board but do not be pesky or irritating.

Don’t send them a sales pitch about how good your product is but project the attitude that you are trying hard and hope to get some honest feedback. This relationship can then be carried forward to the launch phase when these same early adopters drive new trials and adoption of the product first for themselves and then via their social media network.

The launch phase will give you the benefits of the beta test phase as those engaged then would become ambassadors for your brand in the launch phase. If you get this phase right, then you would get your first 10 customers much faster than other businesses as you have already engaged early users who will spread word-of-mouth for your product.

Building your business: Engagement phase
Once the early adopters and early consumers are in place, it is now time to start looking at how social media can scale your business. It’s important you give tools to your early customers to recommend your service. So, even if it is just a ‘tweet this’ button on your website or a ‘share’ widget, it plays an important part in empowering your existing customers to talk about you.
Another key role played in this phase is customer service. Ensure that you have at least one person interacting regularly with existing customers on social media itself and providing them solutions they need.

This shall position you as a responsive company and many of those who view this on social media would start recommending you purely for your customer service.

All in all, while building scale for your business, ensure that while you run after new customers, existing customers are not ignored. In social media, just like in the offline world, word-of-mouth or recommendations from existing customers is the most powerful marketing tactic.

This single tactic could ensure that the distribution network for your product grows by leaps and bounds.

Scaling your business: Influence phase
If you have grown your startup up to the scaling phase, then you have already done a few things right. One of them is existing customers. Leverage them and also start positioning yourself as a preferred employer on social media. As you scale, you need to start designing campaigns for your brand on social media and ensure that the messaging meets your objective. Ensure that most of the campaign engages existing customers and leverage their influence over newer prospective customers. This can be done by soliciting testimonials and showcasing them on your Facebook page or twitter ID.

As an employer, you could showcase your current status in office activities, parties and people to the rest of the world. Your current employees are the best people to be the spokesperson for you as an employer and you can encourage them to blog, tweet and spread the word that your company is growing and hiring new employees.

Conclusion
Social media could be your megaphone that connects you to the world while starting, building and scaling your company. What you need to ensure is that you are not only using it to convey your story to the world but also conversing and, most importantly, listening to the world and what it has to say. As long as you use it like a two-way street, with due respect to those on the other side of the road, you shall do well.

RAJIV DINGRA is the Founder and CEO of WATConsult, a social media agency. He also founded WATBlog.com, a leading digital media blog.

©Entrepreneur February 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tags:
digital media, Rajiv Dingra, social media, WATConsult