If you are still on the sidelines about whether social media is a passing fad or whether it has any validity, I recommend you watch this video on the Social Media Revolution.

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WestJet (Canada’s best airline) recently launched their WestJet Twitter account. To gain exposure & new followers they ran a contest where all their recent Twitter followers were eligible to win a trip for two to any major destination in Canada. At the time of this blog post they have already reached 4,653 followers. I’d say that’s a pretty successful contest.

Before I go on, I have to say that I was already a huge fan of WestJet. They have the best service. And as an internet marketer, finding out they were on Twitter was icing on the cake!

Within a few hours of being sent a direct message, I was connected to Huda of their promotions team. Once the formality of forms and correctly answering the skill testing question is out of the way, I’ll be the owner of two shiny flight vouchers.

Thanks Westjet!

I recently had a conversation with a potential social media marketing client. They had approached me to create a Facebook Fan Page for their company to support their upcoming website launch. Like any other consultant, I was thrilled to have a chance to work with a new client. However, after taking a step back it was clear that the prerequisite weren’t in place to run an effective social media campaign.

Before taking the deep dive into social media, here’s a checklist to get your campaign off on the right foot:

1. What’s Your Story?

What’s your elevator pitch? What’s the short & concise reason why your company exists and is different from everyone else?

- Obama’s story was that he was the outsider who had fresh ideas and can change Washington

- Grasshopper (formerly known as GotVMail) is the company that provides telecommunication services to small companies so they can look like they are a bigger company.

- SouthWest Airlines is the low cost, no frills airline that get’s you to your destination on time

Without a story, all you have is a bunch of products and services to sell that doesn’t compel anyone to act (or buy).

2. What’s Your Goal?

Are you trying to increase direct sales? Are you trying to soften up your prospects? Are you using social media to increase your links for SEO?

BuildDirect launched a YouTube video to show their products were durable, give insight into their company culture and spread the word about their company. Although no direct sales are attributable to their viral video, their sales team has said that the video made it easier to approach certain prospects because they were already familiar with the company through the video they had discovered online.

Before talking tactics, have your goals in mind. It not only gives your campaign a direction but also helps identify the metrics you can use to measure your campaign’s effectiveness.

3. Who Are You Trying to Reach with Social Media?

Although you may be tempted to jump to the obvious choice; your target market. Your potential customers are just one of the potential targets for your social media endeavor. It could also be the media, to try and gain some publicity. It could be a group of influencers such as bloggers who can help you influence your target market. Whoever it is, have an exact picture of the group you’re trying to reach with your social media campaign. It’ll help you (and your agency) focus when it comes time to plan tactics.

4. Is Your Organization Ready to Be Involved & Invested?

Are you ready to invest people & time to the process? Setting up a Facebook Fan Page, Tweeting your first few Tweets, uploading a couple of videos to YouTube…that’s just the first few steps to set things in motion.

Brad Nelson who Tweets for Starbucks has said that he spends about a third of his day on Twitter.

Social media isn’t a set it & forget it medium. To get some real value out of social media, you have to socialize, interact and be involved. In order to do those things you need to have people. People to take ownership of your Twitter account. People to create some creative & interactive promotional ideas for your Facebook fans. People to come up with a snazzy contest to get some value out of YouTube or Flickr.

Although social media is perceived to be a free method to promote your company and increase brand awareness, it takes valuable time & resources away from other core activities that you have on your company’s to-do list.

Jumping into tactics may give the perception of a marketing win, but when results don’t materialize the enthusiasm & support can soon fade. Having these answers in place before you get started with social media will help your organization focus on creative & effective strategies that will lead to a greater likelihood of success.