Social Media Marketing

​1 Identify the people involved (who's in charge and who's helping). This may seem pretty straight forward: you just tell people what to do and they do it, right? It's a bit more complicated if you want people to be efficient. First, you need to understand who is comfortable with social media in general and which platforms they prefer. Also, see who is an early adopter of new tools and willing to learn. Finally, don't assume that people who are good at networking for instance will also be good at social media. You may find that someone who isn't even part of the marketing department is really good at social media. When this happens, you don't necessarily need to move that person to the marketing department, but make sure that he or she is involved in your social media marketing activities and rewarded for their efforts.

3 Start with multiple social media platforms and monitor results to see which one works best. Depending on everyone's experience and on research which shows what platforms your customers may use, it's preferable to choose 3 or 4 platforms to start with. Cross posting on multiple platforms can be useful as long as it's not too redundant. Also, be careful to check the format and length of your posts on different platforms. For instance, if you make your Facebook posts automatically show on your Twitter account, images may not always show, the title of your Facebook post will be cropped on Twitter, etc.

5 You can try to automate posting or try to post at times that have the biggest impact on each platform. While there is research to indicate what the best times may be for each platform, it helps to use analytics tools (usually provided by each platform) to better understand your audience.

7 Identify hashtags and lists to follow so you can get the latest information about your market. Influencers usually have useful lists which you can follow but you can also create your own lists. The main benefit of a list on Twitter for instance is that you can you can see what is being shared by accounts without following them.

There are hashtags for each type of software solution like #CRM , #ERP, #PLM , etc, but also more general hashtags like #ENSW(stands for enterprise software). Major software conferences also have hashtags which usually change every year (for instance #oow16 for Oracle Open World 2016) or not (like #CMWorld, #HRTech and #SAPPHIRENOW),

Some hashtags are more popular than others and you can use the tools below to determine which ones are worth following and using. They can also help you find similar hashtags and provide analytics on when they are used, by whom, etc.

There are tools specifically designed to help you find, track and analyse hash-tags - here are some of them:

9 Always respond to comments as soon as you can -if you don't have an answer, let people know that you will follow up. It goes without saying that you should follow up, ideally with an answer or a solution. Even when someone else in your company answers the questions or provides the solution, still follow up to see if the customer if satisfied with the result of the interaction.

But comments aren't always business related. They can contain rants that have nothing to do with your company or what you're selling, offensive replies to other comments, and even jokes or sarcastic remarks. Before responding, try to understand what people are trying to say. A sarcastic comment usually means that the person posting it is frustrated but not offended. If you respond sarcastically to a sarcastic, they may feel offended. You won't get everything right but at least try and even ask when you're not sure what people mean.

11 Collaborate with other employees in order to better understand the offering of your company or to effectively engage prospects and customers. Here are some categories of employees that marketers can work with in order to be more efficient on social media:

- customer service representatives are in direct contact with customers and they may have answers to questions about the products or services you sell. Also, they can provide valuable feedback based on the interactions with customers

- project delivery managers or trainers usually know the solutions quite well and they also identify advantages and disadvantages of the solution during implementation. Marketers need to know the advantages to promote them, but also be aware of the disadvantages in order to respond when they are asked about them

- technical people like programmers or product managers know the software solution best, but their insight needs to be translated into a more accessible language since most prospects and customers aren't very technical. It also helps to know what new features or products these employees are working on, but be careful what you share on social media to avoid leaking confidential information or intellectual property.