People are increasingly recognising the need to use social media to promote their company, but when faced with the prospect of writing a daily blog or tweeting on a regular basis, lack of time is a quickly cited as a barrier to even getting started. This is particularly the case if the person is not already part of the marketing or communications teams.

Citing lack of time clearly links to the perceived value of regularly conducting such activity. People generally find time for things they think will benefit them.

The results from blogging aren’t immediate

The big problem is that the results from blogging or tweeting aren’t usually immediate – social media is about using content to build relationships and this can take time. On a day to day basis it’s often not clear which blog or twitter topic is the one that will make the most difference. You can blog for weeks and not seem to make an impact.

But as companies point out, if they are going to invest in this space they need a clear idea that they will get a return.

It comes back to the old adage in marketing – ‘only 50% of marketing works, the question is which 50%?’ This applies just as much to social media marketing.

Some look to consultancies to direct them to what is guaranteed to work, but this is rarely possible as the audience for every business or brand is different even in the same sector. The real-time nature of the web makes it notoriously difficult to predict behaviour.

Businesses who have made the step into social media marketing are increasingly using monitoring and analytics tools to ‘listen’ to their audience and get some kind of indication of the impact of their work.

Who is best placed in an organisation to engage in social media?

Linking this to your social media activity is relatively straight forward when there just one or two of you in a business. It’s easy to keep track of the blog, twitter, Facebook etc.

Problems arise when you’re a big corporate with different products, divisions etc. It becomes impossible. The big question is who within the organisation is best placed to listen and manage / engage in social media in order to generate maximum awareness, engagement and ultimately sales?

This is leading to a new kind of marketer who works across the business:

The content engineeer

Pelin Thorogood blogged about the idea of the content engineer. In Pelin’s words this “is a marketer who engineers and optimises the many forms of content required to engage customer 2.0, based on the data presented by the many analysis tools. eg:

• Social-media monitoring and analysis give them the pulse on buyer sentiments on brands, products, and ad campaigns.
• Web analytics tell them which content is engaging which type of visitor from which source.
• Search engine optimisation tools present them with the right keywords to include on the web site to improve page rank (and thus findability) with search engines.

Leveraging all the social and behavioral intelligence available to them, content engineers develop and apply the right content, at the right time, to engage the right audience in the most effective manner possible.”

This is great thinking as it is clear the value in social media is generated through content.

But it starts to put a framework around how you can optimise this content to get the best results for your business and who should do this.

It shows how your time spent in social media marketing can be used most effectively, so you can start to see the value in what you do.