Developing social media strategies that fuse content with technology will help your organization create meaningful connections with your audience. Social media communication channels interactively allow people and organizations with like interests to share knowledge, ideas and personal connections. Companies, associations, nonprofits and government agencies are using social media tools to monitor conversations about their organizations, products and important issues; create buzz and influence public opinion through word-of-mouth marketing; and reduce the costs to do both.
Once considered a niche trend, social media is now solidly mainstream with over 110 million people in the United States (36% of the population) using social media tools regularly. Facebook has 350 million subscribers worldwide and 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared each week – it has surpassed Google as the number one U.S. site. It is no longer a question of whether or not to use social media. It is a question of how best to use it successfully.
Common Questions
- If we provide the tools, will people actually use them?
- How much additional staff will it take to support the use of social media?
- Can we set reasonable guidelines and how do we enforce them?
- Should we be using 3rd party tools such as Facebook and Twitter or build communities on our own site?
- How can we leverage these tools internally to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration?
- What can be done to nurture participation?
- Are there ways to increase revenue using social media?
- What changes can we expect in the future as Web 3.0 comes along?
Services
Social Media Strategy
Every good implementation starts with a well-defined strategy. What are the business drivers for your use of social media and what do you expect to accomplish? There will be lots of internal stakeholders with a vested interest and you will need to understand what your customers, members, donors and the general public want. In short, you will need a plan to create channels that will be used, nurture activity, and eventually monetize the outcomes.
Tool Selection
Once a strategy has been defined, it’s important to understand the best ways to implement and manage your social identity. There is a continuous stream of social tools for profiling, managing & monitoring a social presence. We work with you to identify the right tools to support your strategic goals, maximize resource efficiency and provide analytic insights for understanding your social climate.
Solution Implementation
There is a lot to consider when getting your social identity up and running, and it can be a challenge for even the most prepared organizations. It’s important that your social presence match and compliment your web presence for a consistent brand experience wherever your customers are. We enable that consistency through personalized branding, custom development and integration across social networks. And we’ll help you get off on the right foot by supporting you through the initial steps of engaging your audience as you embrace the social sphere.
Social Media Monitoring & Management (Maintenance)
Social media is a constantly changing environment that can be difficult to keep up with especially beyond initial implementation and day to day engagement. While we believe it’s important for you to engage your audience for the most authentic conversations, we help you to listen, analyze your presence and make decisions that support your ongoing strategy.
What makes us different?
Senior resources with an average of more than 15 years of experience focused exclusively on technology strategy and business process improvement.
- Integrated design and development teams
- On-going support for a collaborative social strategy
- Broad digital experience for a consistent, usable brand experience
- Focus on helping clients engage rather than doing it for them
- Proven service record and customer satisfaction
ICF Ironworks delivers experience, creativity and know-how each time. Our teams are staffed with industry experts and consultants who focus only on what they know best. Because we don’t try to be everything to everyone, our experts stay experts and our new clients become returning clients.