Most office furniture dealers start using social media by saying “we should do a blog” or “we should be on twitter or have a Facebook page.” This is not a healthy approach because the objectives are not set before the tools. To help clients with this idea, eBoost Consulting has adopted Forrester Research’s P.O.S.T. method to create a systematic approach to leveraging social technologies.

P – People
• Assess customer’s social activities (see Social Technographics)
• Listen to current conversations about the industry and brand
O – Objectives
• Decide what to accomplish: Listen, Talk, Energize, Support, or Embrace
• Determine if you want to engage with current clients for higher client retention or bring in new customers
S – Strategy
• Plan for how relationships with customers will develop
T- Technology
• Decide which social technologies to use (wiki, forum, social networks, etc.)

Social Technographics

Social Technographics is consumer data that not only looks at just the adoption of individual technologies, but how consumers approach these technologies. This information is vital because it will determine what tools you will have to use and how to set appropriate metrics for monitoring performance of your social media efforts. A ladder is used to show varying levels of participation from adults online:

These six levels of online participation are as follows, starting from the top of the ladder with the most sophisticated category:

1. “Creators”. At the top of the ladder are “Creators” – online customers who publish blogs, maintain web pages, or upload videos to sites like YouTube at least once a month. “Creators” are an elite group, including just 13% of the total adult online population. “Creators” are generally young but are evenly split between men and women. Their participation in creation activities is varied; just 14% do all three activities while another 19% participate in two creator activities.

2. “Critics”. These online consumers participate in either two ways – commenting on blogs or posting ratings and reviews on sites. This level of participation isn’t nearly as intense as being a “Creator” – “Critics” pick and choose where they want to offer their expertise and often use another blog post or product as the foundation for their contribution. “Critics” represent 19% of all adult online consumers.

3. “Collectors”. When users save URLs on a social bookmarking service like del.icio.us or use RSS feeds on Bloglines, they create metadata that’s shared with the entire community. The art of collecting and aggregating information plays a vital role in organizing the tremendous amount of content being produced by “Creators” and “Critics”. “Collectors” represent 15% of the adult online population and are the most male-dominated of all Social Technographic groups.

4. “Joiners”. This unique group has one defining behavior – using a social networking site like MySpace.com or Facebook. “Joiners” represent only 19% of the adult online population and are the youngest of the Social Technographics groups. They are highly likely to engage in other Social Computing activities – 56% read blogs while 30% publish blogs.

5. “Spectators”. This group of blog readers, video reviewers, and podcast listeners, which represents 33% of the adult online population, is important as the audience for the social content made by everyone else. As a group, “Spectators” are slightly more likely to be women and have the lowest household income of all the Social Technographics groups. The most common activity for “Spectators” is reading blogs. Though there may be overlap, in all, 31% of “Spectators” do not engage in “Creator”, “Critic”, “Collector” or “Joiner” activities.

6. “Inactives”. This social technographic group does not participate at all in social computing activities. They are older, above the age of 50, and are more likely to be women and are less likely to consider themselves leaders or tell their friends about products that interest them.

Conclusion:

Would you decide on what furniture to install, where and how to install it without ever talking to the client and determining what is important them? Of course not, and social media marketing should be approached the same way. Following the P.O.S.T. method is going to be vital to any successful social media campaign. It is essential to determine the ‘People’ before you even decide on whether to use Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter and start to allocate resources to executing on social media.

Originally written by:
Johnny Chan
Edited by:
Jason Kirby