In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd get a little festive. In reading about the purpose of St. Patrick's Day, I found out that he actually used the clover (or shamrock) as a way to teach the Holy Trinity to the Irish. So I thought I'd create something similar, the Social Media Shamrock. It's the 3 C's of Social Media: Commitment, Content, and Conversation.
Each of these three things are independent factors but they are not mutually exclusive of each other. Each one requires the other two and the overall success of Social Media Marketing requires the harmony of all the three.
Commitment
You must be committed to your Social Media Strategy. There are many ways in which you must be committed in order to achieve success. You must be committed to a regular posting schedule. This means, posting at consistent intervals and times relevant to your audience. You must be committed to the time it takes to manage your sites. For some people this may be an hour a day, others may mean 24 hours a day. Either way, learn your time requirements and ensure that you have the staff required to meet your needs. You must be committed to responding to your followers. Whether comments, questions, shares, or recommendations, take the time to address your fans directly. You must be committed to creating valuable posts that your audience wants to engage with.
Content
You must have content, and it must be good content. When you post to any Social Media platform, you are creating content. But just slapping something up there for the sake of posting doesn't do anyone any good. Your content must have a purpose, it must be relevant, it must be valuable, and it must be targeted towards your audience. In order to engage your audience and get them to actually comment, share, or "like", you must be creating content that resonates with them.
Conversation
Social Media is about being "SOCIAL". You can't be social if you're not having a conversation! Social Media is not a one-way street for you to shout your advertising slogan at every person you meet. It's about engaging your audience and conducting conversations with them. Respond to your fans on a personal level to show them you're really there and that you're really listening. Engage them by asking them questions and actually implementing their feedback. Find ways to include them directly in your strategy.
As you can see, these three things rely on each other - commitment creates good content, good content creates engagement, engagement creates conversation, and conversation creates success.
So don't leave your Social Media success to the luck of the Irish, use your Social Media Shamrock!
