Our last social media blog talked about sorting through the social media landscape, creating goals and understanding appropriate social media channels for your business needs. Without clear goals, objectives and strategies for using social media, you can end up spending a lot of time and not really engaging with anyone.

The engagement process is one of the most important aspects of social media. Ask yourself, “How am I going to collect, assess, allocate and respond on social media?”

Here are a few tips:

• Collection

Start by searching for relevant keywords about your competition, your brand, your products/services and your company. Track the results from news articles, blogs, forums, tweets, Facebook, etc.

• Assessment

Analyze the information collected and determine if it is positive, neutral or negative. Once this determination is made, prioritize by importance and determine if response is needed.

• Allocation

When determining next steps for taking action, start by thinking about who is best to respond. Then think about how to respond.

• Response

Transparency, two-way conversation, timely responses and using a tone that reflects your organization and brand are necessary when engaging in dialogue via social media channels. And when we say “timely” we mean within hours, not days.

Now that you understand the importance of having social media goals, strategies and an approach to better engage with your audiences, how do you think social media can help meet your business goals?