Webster’s Dictionary defines innovation as “a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation.”
Alister & Paine takes the definition a step further. Innovation must not only be a creation resulting from study and experimentation but it must add to the bottom line by eliminating processes and increasing employee productivity. Alas, it cannot be “innovation for innovations’ sake”.
Therein lies the problem. There’s been so much “innovation” in the world of Social Media over the past few years (ie. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon…) that it’s becoming harder and harder to create something useful that people will actually use. The best plan, for those of us who didn’t dropout of Harvard to start a billion-dollar social networking site, is to make use of the ones that already exist.
How does one do this? If possible you should hire on a tech savvy marketing guru to handle all of your social media networking but, if you can’t justify the expense just yet, you can handle your companys entire Social Media Campaign for about 30 minutes a day.
Here’s how.
Find a Social Media Release platform (our regular readers know we’ve been using Pitchengine for quite some time) and dedicate 20 minutes to “filling in the blanks”. One of the blanks is a 140 character “Twitter Pitch” so you’ve already got a pitch ready to use on your Twitter account plus readers can use it to re-tweet. Social Media Release platforms allow you to tell the whole story, the who/what/when/why/how, that you can never squeeze into 140 characters or less.
When it comes to developing a Social Media Campaign it’s not important to be on every social media website…it’s important to select the handful of sites that work with your mission and find innovative ways to manipulate your web presence. (Twitter is a must and anyone who pretends it isn’t is just trying to play the old school-kid game of “I’m cool ‘cus I’m different”… no, you’re not, and that’s why you blog from your parents basement). The idea here is quality over quantity.
Use the remaining 10 minutes to pitch your SMR (that’s short for Social Media Release) through the few networks you’ve chosen to utilize.
Want to give it a shot? Sign up for Pitchengine and try it–for free. You can submit releases for free that’ll stay archived for 30 days–or, if SEO is a large part of your strategy, sign up for an Customized Social Media Newsroom (it’s only $550/year) and get unlimited social media releases archived for the duration of your membership.
