Courtesy The Beatles Wiki
“Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave” Holism-Wikipedia
In part 1 of our series “Becoming a Holistic Social Media Marketer” we will outline how to approach your marketing efforts with a top down, whole environment strategy. Although many people begin by integrating social networks into their marketing plans, they often ignore how the pieces relate and can be used together.
Holistic Social Media Strategy
The definition of the word holistic is a great example of how a social media marketer could begin to plan strategies: “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts. . . ”
3 Holistic Social Media Steps
Before you begin to plan and execute your social media marketing efforts, you must understand the whole playing field. Without an understanding of the “big picture”, you cannot effectively break down the parts and extract relevant analysis:
- Choosing Social Networks: which social network(s) will be utilized in your plan? The answer to this question comes from the goals being set by your organization.
- Is this a marketing campaign designed to change public perception?
- Is it focused on new sales growth? Retention?
- Is it meant to drive networking and new partnerships?
- Social “Big Picture”: how do the social networks you have chosen to utilize fit together and collaborate in a “whole” strategy?
- Widgets: interconnecting your social networks, so people know where to find you, by providing a “portal” aka widget that with one click can take them to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profiles or pages
- Synergy: connecting your blog messaging to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn by embedding links to articles-messages on each social network you are utilizing
- Uniformity: consistent articles-messages delivered to each social network providing your audience with a clear perception of your company
- Identification: identify the role(s) each social network will play in the marketing plan.
- Facebook: can function as the relationship builder, CRM mechanism, and customer service spot for your company
- Twitter: often takes on the role as the prospect-lead generation tool feeding your Facebook profile, page, or company blog
- Blog: this is the ultimate publishing platform for your company’s messages. It is the best hub and centerpiece from which to launch
- LinkedIn: this is your networking portal and due diligence mechanism. If people want to know key individuals running a company this is where they will land. This is also a fantastic place to create real time update messaging as well as demonstrate and establish company expertise within a niche
