In this segment of “The Nuts & Bolts of Social Media,” Kirsten Hamstra outlines the details of how SAS Publishing planned and executed its social media strategy. SAS Publishing was the first SAS division out on Social Media and they achieved good early success through planning, and are able to share a few key learnings, too.

Deb Orton, host of this series, asked Kirsten what the top 3 priorities were in their social media strategy, and Kirsten answered:
1. Raising awareness of SAS Publishing and its role in supporting customers by providing documentation,
2. Building a community, particularly one focused on their authors, including a LinkedIn Group, a Facebook Group, a Twitter Account and the “Open Mic” blog at blogs.sas.com.
3. Increased sales of SAS publications, which is linked to awareness of the materials.

Deb and Kirsten explore why its important to have a consistent look and feel across all channels, which means that corporate brand management extends to social media presence. Doing that enables customers familiar with the brand to know what to expect and get a better experience.

Some of the key learnings included the fact that not everyone has the same level of familiarity or comfort with social media, so an important part of getting started in social media is educating people about how to engage. Also, in a corporate environment, both internal and external marketing of the new presence in social media is key to gaining momentum.

Finally, establishing goals and how to measure them up-front were deemed an important part of the planning and execution of SAS Publishing in social media. In their case, they wanted to be sure to measure reach, as well as referrals from the different channels and the quality of the engagements. As the person leading the effort, Kirsten found that Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are both very helpful.

Click on the screen below to tune in – this is an engaging discussion with a lot of practical take-aways.