Curated Social Media Wisdom From Top Enterprise Experts

We found a post by Chad Pollitt, quoting lots of great information from Jay Baer's latest ebook, 'Social Pros All-Stars: Career Paths & Tips from 27 Big Company Social Media Professionals.'

What do 'Big Company Social Media Professionals' know that the rest of us might not be so clear about? We dug into the data to see if we could find any meaningful patterns. Here's what we got. Enjoy!

Curated Social Media Wisdom From Top Enterprise Experts

Before anything else…

Establish your social media presence

• Having a Twitter account today is like having a Web page 10 years ago.

Lauren Teague, Social Media Manager, PGA Tour

1. Know thyself

Understand your business in and out

• Ignorance is not bliss. Know your business in and out, top to bottom investigate pain points and never stop asking ’why?’

Venessa Sain – Dieguez, Director, Social Media Planning and Integration, Hilton Worldwide

Approach: Be purposeful

• Think strategically and act with purpose. Ask ‘what does this do for my business?’

Katie Morse, Social Marketing Manager, Billboard

Say true to your brand

• Keep things simple. You can’t be all things to all people, but you can have a real impact where it matters if you stay true to your brand.

Paul Haskell, Founder, Paul Haskell Marketing Consulting

2. Know thy audience

Understand why people share, and what makes them tick

• Get to the heart of WHY people are sharing, regardless of the social platform you’re on. The mediums may change, but I don’t think people change all that much.

Katie Richman, Director of Social Media Strategy and Social Products, Espnw & X Games

• E-cubed: Explore, Educate, Experiment with social channels. Also, understand your customer, what makes them tick and then deliver valuable/relevant content to them. They will reward you with loyalty, brand advocacy and purchase in return.

Brad Walters, Director of Social Media and Emerging Platforms, Lowe's Home Improvement

3. Talk to them, and listen

Talk to everyone

• Don't pick and choose. Talk to everybody.

Joe Stupp, Social Media Manager, Chipotle

Listen, listen, listen.

• Never underestimate the power of your fans. They're your biggest advocates, but also your strongest critics. Speak to them regularly – but more importantly, listen.

Tony Clark, Director of Communications, Cedar Point Amusement Park

• Recognize social media is a community, try to be a part of it, not the center of it. Key is listen, listen, listen.

Frank Eliason, Director of Global Social Media, Citi

• Do not think of social media as the savior for your business. It is not a magic bullet. It is, however, the absolute best way to talk to people. And, more importantly, listen to people.

Jodi Gersh, Director, Social Media and Engagement, Cannett

4. Get the right things right

Get good at organic before paid

• Develop a strong, organic/owned voice in each social channel before supporting it with paid.

Michele Martinez Wingate, Social Media Manager, American Family Insurance

5. Be Useful

Vanity = Being useless

• You cannot be vain in this biz. It's not about what you like. It's about your fans. And the best ideas transcend tactics.

Jason Miller, Social Content Manager at Beam Global, Jim Beam

Be a source of value for your audience

• Always think of your fans first, your fans are your brand if your content helps put them in the front row, then you're doing your job. Use the 3 Es to Guide you Educate, Enlighten or Entertain. You must do at least one all of the time.

Bryan Srabian, Director of Digital Media, San Francisco Giants

• Know your customers and what content they want from you. Hint, it's not an ad.

Justin Gardner, Social Media Manager, AMC Theatres

• Your opinion, while interesting is irrelevant. Always start initiatives with your end – user in mind (not your competition, partners, shareholders, your boss, etc).

Dave Morse, Digital Marketing Strategist, Delta Faucet Company

6. Create content

Engagement begets content

• There's an opportunity to create content with every person you meet or event you attend interview someone via video/audio. Write. Publish. Repeat.

Kevein Hunt, Corporate Social Media Manager, General Mills

Content begets engagement

• Earn the right to market to your fans, first by creating compelling and consistent content and then through engagement. This creates commerce.

James Royer, Director of Digital and Social Media, Tampa Bay Lightning

Appeal to the five senses

• Nothing will guide you to a story worth sharing like your five senses. Use them, always.

Carlie Kautz, Global Marketing/Special Projects, Taylormade-Adidas Golf

7. Go with your gut, try new things

• Social is a combination of science and art. Rely on analytics to dictate your strategy but know that there are times where you should go with your gut and try something even if there are no numbers to support it.

Callan Green, Director of Digital Strategy, J Public Relations

• Be passionate about trying new things but strategic in choosing them. A field like social can make bright shiny objects look very tempting.

Lauren Salazar, Director, Social Media, Weight Watchers International

8. Test, iterate, evolve

Be willing to test and fail

• Take a risk! Test, test and test again cause what worked today may not work tomorrow, but what didn't work yesterday may work again in the future.

Amrita Sahasrabudhe, Director of Marketing, Aramark Parks and Destinations

• Be scrappy, test and fall small.

Jennifer Beechen, Director of Consumer Engagement, The Whitewave Foods Company

• When you give smart people permission to fail, you also equip them with the tools to succeed. Social leaders build stages where everyone can have rockstar results.

Adrian Parker, Vice President, Digital Marketing, The Patron Spirits Company

Learn and evolve

• Be ready to evolve. The industry does so at a rapid pace and you have to be willing to do the same to continue to build your knowledge and skillset.

Sonny Gill, Social Business and Marketing Leader, US Cellular

• Conventional wisdom will get you nothing but lacklustre results. To truly succeed you need to learn as much as you can and then somehow figure out what to always remember and also quickly forget.

Rick Wion, Director of Social Media, MCDonald's

9. It's all about people

• Get the nation out of your head that social media doesn't matter because you're B2B. There's people behind each of those businesses.

Scott Monty, Global Head of Social Media, Ford Motor Company

Have a useful advice about social media to share? Let us know in the comments below! :)

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Other posts in this sequence:

1. What IS social media?
2. Why is it so hard to define social media, and why should we care?
3. What's the difference between 'social networking sites' and social media?
4. Why are people so annoying on social media?
5. How did online social networks disrupt traditional media?
6. How will social media change the way we live and consume?
7. How to navigate social media effectively
8. Curated Social Media Wisdom From Top Enterprise Experts [Infographic]