Successful social media launches are about building a community engagement around a subject the community cares about. Just like in a face to face situation, brands have to establish credibility with an audience before they can influence – and that means being authentic and trustworthy.
Front Porch Perspectives recently assisted legal website, Advicescene.com develop a web presence plan. “We are all about democratizing the law and making it accessible to everyone through our website” says AdviceScene.com founder Nancy Kinney. “We knew we needed to build our community with a social media campaign but didn’t know where to start.” Kinney went on to say that Rachwalski’s suggestion that they not sell their product at first was surprising.
Build Value before Selling
“My instincts were to sell and push our products, yet Front Porch’s perspective was to build our value first …and it paid off.” Kinney was recently highlighted as the twitter princess of Victoria BC on a local news channel for her loyal following on legal issues. To view the video – Go to our Promoting Technology page and scroll down to “Publicize”.
Kinney comments that most of their signups on AdviseScene.com come from their social media presence. She continued, “Front Porch Perspectives brought technology launch experience, management advice plus much needed market analysis combined with social media skills to set a clear direction. The result was that our social media implementation phase was reduced to weeks instead of months.”
Use Social Media as Part of Your Technology Launch
Typical technology start-up firms usually have solid product ideas though little experience building a web presence or community to promote their brand and assist with awareness and commercialization. Tapping into your industry community and monitoring your brand on social media during product launch is critical for the high tech sector to bridge the gap between concept and marketing practices.
Technology entrepreneurs consistently express the need for actionable web presence plans. Make sure you ask for solid market research techniques to create an appropriate go to market plan combined with social media metrics and analysis to monitor results.
Author:
Terry Rachwalski holds an MBA and is a Certified Management Consultant. Via her Victoria, BC based company, Front Porch Perspectives, Rachwalski provides business development and consulting services to technology firms – from product ideation to product launch including web strategies and social media planning, launch and monitoring. As a Certified Management Consultant (CMC), Rachwalski is also eligible to assist clients of the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program or IRAP with Management Advisory Services.