Social communities and social networking applications are all the rage these days. But many people—particularly companies trying to take advantage of online tools to attract attention, create connections and build credibility—are unsure what to do. What are the steps you need to take to use online social networking techniques and tools effectively?

It boils down to achieving FAME. The aim is not necessarily to become a celebrity, but simply to have a good roadmap and rules to guide your efforts. However, with enough strategic planning and work, you or your company just might get famous!

F-Framework

Successful social networking begins with a solid framework. This means determining the goals you want to achieve, before you start plunging in haphazardly. It’s no different than building a house, or crafting a good marketing strategy.

Architects use paper blueprints to represent what they will build in the physical world. Similarly, web developers create digital site maps showing what pages a website will contain and what features it will provide. Do the same in identifying your social networking goals. How will it impact your existing website? What types of information are you looking to share online? Who will be responsible for setting things up, contributing content, and monitoring and responding to comments? How much money and time should you budget?

A great way to brainstorm and visual your goals is to use a mind mapping tool such as Mindmeister.com. This will serve as a more effective reference vs. a written plan that rarely gets reviewed.

To get you started, I have created a comprehensive Social Networking Framework as a mind map, complete with notes and links. (Click here if you’re interested in signing up for a Mindmeister account.)

A-Action Steps

Once you have your high-level goals in mind, determine what strategies and tactics you will need to use in order to achieve them. Are you looking to create a place to share information and solicit feedback? You might consider creating a blog…a membership forum…a social networking site…a Twitter account…a Facebook or Linkedin page…or a wiki (or all the above!). Do you want to share audio content? Perhaps a podcast is in order. What about distributing videos? You’ll want to set up accounts on YouTube and other major video sharing sites.

There are dozens of tools available, depending on the types of engagement you are seeking. With proper goals in mind, it makes it easier to choose from the myriad options. Just a few of the areas to explore in terms of ways to reach others include:

• Blogs
• Content sharing (text, audio and video)
• E-Learning
• Events
• Podcasts
• Social bookmarking sites
• Social media press releases
• Social networking/social community sites
• Text messaging
• Webinars
• Wikis

Use your mind map and Google Docs to create and store site addresses, usernames, passwords and information for all of your profiles.

As your build up your network of sites and resources, it is also important to develop specific action steps to help keep content fresh and “synchronized,” so to speak. You’ll want to repurpose content and reach as many people as possible. As an example, when you add an article to your blog, you should have as next action steps to send out a message to your Twitter followers, update your community “status” messages (using a service like Ping.fm) and add a brief description and link to your next e-newsletter.

M-Measurability

It’s critical to establish upfront how you will gauge the success of any social networking strategy you employ. If you are setting up your own social networking site using a tool like Ning.com, how will you measure success? Will it be by the number of registered users? The frequency of comments? For audio or video files, will it be the number of times they are listened to or viewed, the number of times they are shared, or actions taken as a result?

There are a lot of ways to measure the success of social networking activities. With Twitter, for example, you can search keywords in real time, set up keyword alerts and track how many times someone clicks on links you share. There are many more ways to analyze Twitter alone. For blogs and websites, tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot will give you a wealth of statistics. For blogs, sites like Backtype and Trackur will let you monitor the blogosphere and other places to see what’s being said about you or your company. This is essential to stay on top of any negative comments and respond quickly to protect your reputation.

E²-Execution + Engagement

The “E” in Fame rests on both execution and engagement.

Ask any great coach, and they will tell you the best plan will fail without superior execution. To do social networking well, you must have dedicated people and processes. Without the right people in place (and support from the highest levels of your organization), you won’t generate the quality and quantity of content necessary to stay relevant. Likewise, the lack of formal processes will at best yield inconsistent results, and at worse lead to internal conflicts and high abandonment rates.

Execution in social networking is all about truly engaging with the communities that you belong to or build. You must be open, honest, proactive and responsive at all times. Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent, says, “At the end of the day, your best bet is to maintain a really good character.” If you are unresponsive, intermittent or misleading, the results will be negative and could seriously damage your reputation and credibility.

Recommended Reading

For more information on social networking theories and tools, and how to use them to your advantage, I recommend the following books:

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologiesby Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customersby Robert Scoble and Shel Israel

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directlyby David Meerman Scott

Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Onlineby Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss

Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business!by Paul Gillin

What Do You Think?

I welcome your comments on the FAME social networking model.

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