Eran writes… In Social Media, strategy is 90% of the engagement.

There is often this type of “shotgun” approach by new people entering into the field and thinking : well it’s free! I’ll just do a bit of it all.

The problem with this methodology or mindset is that it consumes valuable time and rarely yields positive results. Rather, employing this sort of strategy can create a type of “Banner Blindness” to your brand. Remember Cacophonix from Asterix? That guy with the harp that spent every feast tied up while everyone made merry, ate the wild boar and drank the mead? You don’t want to be that guy.

One of the first things we had to do was a bit of trial and error – from viral videos to twitter – to assess what people respond to, how they respond and what resources were used to accomplish the end goal. Most importantly : we always have a goal. A desire to achieve a predefined quantifiable result that is in line with the resources employed to the task… And of course – there has to be some fun to fuel the passion.

We quickly came to understand that it’s all about the numbers, but authenticity and focus are key.

Every platform had it’s own purpose and perfect yield that is not shared by others. The trick is to understand which was which and supply those channels regularly with stimuli to keep existing readers reading and to attract new readers through existing readers credibility. In some cases, it’s about keeping current buyers buying and get them to spread the word in their circles of trust.

It takes 2 keypresses to RT in Twitter, but in a sea of information – why should you be special? Social media platforms force you to provide the extraordinary regularly enough to raise the bar that people come to expect it as the new standard by which to compare all other similar experiences to.

So taking Twitter, for example, we identified that there were 2 separate channels necessary – one for active engagement with our community in conversation and spreading general news (@Springleap – htttp://www.twitter.com/springleap) and another which was for daily specials at noon every weekday (@springleaping – http://www.twitter.com/springleaping). With this strategy we were able to create a strong area of focus – the icons are different. @Springleap chats with people, @Springleaping does not – it’s more of the town crier belting his lungs out every noon weekday that a new t-shirt is on special.

Each of these accounts employ even deeper strategies of their own – the founders also have their own accounts with personal credibility that will RT some of these tweets and not others.

The biggest mistake one can make is to just decide : I am going to do some “Social Media”. It’s a double-edged sword, and it can get you into some serious trouble, especially if you are the emotional sort. Take case in point of late with Core, the distributors of Apple in SA, where the entire blogging community turned against RJ who is super passionate about his brand, but couldn’t separate his passion from his emotional responses. Passion is great, but it has gotten some great people tarred, feathered and burnt at the stake.

Strategy. Testing. Listening. Follow-through. Regular and meaningful delivery. A level head and pleasant demeanor. A desire to play well with others. This is the correct mindset of Social Media.

Post written by Eran Eyal
You can also catch him on cape talk fm and radio 702 every sunday talking technology and giving free
advice, in our questions and answers segment, live on the air!

Eran uses:
A BLACKBERRY STORM handset kindly sponsored by RIM South Africa
A JABRA BT-530 bluetooth headset kindly sponsored by Kathea
A UNIBODY 17’ MacbookPRO kindly partially sponsored by The Core Group

*For the few who DONT know what Springleap is you can find out more about this funky online entity here http://www.springleap.com/pages/press