Ever find yourself lying in bed late at nigh
t, wide awake, scanning TweetDeck on your smartphone as you finish that last blog post? Or catch yourself wishing you could reach out and physically like something? Do you suffer from ADD and OCD tendencies? If you silently mouthed "yes" to any of the above, you too may have what it takes to become a social marketing specialist.
Plenty of marketers are drawn to social media these days (perhaps because 4 out of 5 Americans
now use it), but skeptics still write it off as a flash in the pan. No matter
how you look at the social web, one thing is clear: You have to fully immerse yourself in it if you want to tap its full potential.
My team falls into the former category. We keep tabs on Dell's social sphere, and let me tell you: When your global platforms change without warning and you have to fix them in real time, keeping up becomes quite the challenge.
But troubleshooting is just a small part of what we do. We spend the lion's share of our time reading, evaluating and strategizing so we can take advantage of new opportunities to grow the brand's social presence. Sound easy? Become a fan of Mashable on Facebook and spend a day trying to read every article in its news feed. It's like that times a thousand, every day.
To keep our clients energized about the social web (and spare them the headache of sifting through it all), we created RPPL. Built around a real-time syndication platform called Posterous, RPPL is a branded social media presence that enables us to:
- Share. Innovative campaigns, private betas, ridiculous memes ...there's always something to talk about. We use RPPL to separate the wheat from the chaff. As soon as big news comes our way, we post it. Posterous then insta-publishes to Facebook, Twitter and Delicious, giving our followers plenty of ways to get the scoop.
- Explore. The best way to understand social media is to get your feet wet. With RPPL, we can just create a presence when a new platform piques our interest and test it like mad.
- Collaborate. RPPL is a vehicle for passing key learnings along to our followers. We hope they spark conversations and inspire new ideas. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats.
In the few short months since we launched RPPL, we've shared hundreds of posts and befriended hundreds of fans and followers. We couldn't be more thrilled about the response we've gotten so far, and we're just getting started. Keep your eyes on RPPL to get in on the next big splash.