How can you ensure your vendors meet your product's social media requirements?

1 Assess your current situation

Before you can improve your vendor relationship management, you need to know where you stand. Start by reviewing your product's social media strategy and goals. What are your key messages, channels, and metrics? How do you measure your performance and feedback? Then, compare your strategy with your vendors'. How do they promote your product on their own platforms? Do they follow your guidelines and best practices? Do they match your tone, style, and values? Identify any gaps, issues, or opportunities for improvement.

2 Communicate your expectations

In order to communicate your expectations to your vendors, you need to create a vendor social media policy that outlines your requirements, standards, and expectations. This policy should include information about the purpose and objectives of your product's social media presence, the roles and responsibilities of your vendors and yourself, the dos and don'ts of posting, sharing, and engaging with your product's content, the quality, frequency, and format of your product's content, the guidelines for using your product's name, logo, and trademarks, as well as the procedures for reporting, monitoring, and evaluating your vendor's social media activities. Additionally, you should provide your vendors with resources such as templates, images, hashtags, and links to help them create and share your product's content effectively.

3 Monitor and measure your vendor's performance

Once you have communicated your expectations, you need to monitor and measure your vendor's performance. To do this, track and analyze the social media activities of your vendor and their impact on the goals of your product. Utilize tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or Hootsuite to collect and compare data such as reach, engagement, and conversion rates of posts; sentiment, feedback, and reviews of followers; alignment, consistency, and quality of content; and compliance, responsiveness, and collaboration of the team. Additionally, solicit feedback from vendors and customers to gain a more comprehensive view of the performance.

4 Provide feedback and recognition

The final step to ensure your vendors meet your product's social media requirements is to provide feedback and recognition. This means acknowledging and rewarding their achievements, as well as addressing and resolving any problems or challenges. You can do this through regular reports, newsletters, or emails that highlight successes and areas for improvement. Additionally, hosting meetings, webinars, or workshops to share best practices, tips, and updates is beneficial. You can also offer incentives, rewards, or bonuses to motivate and appreciate their efforts, as well as provide support, guidance, or training to help them overcome any difficulties or gaps. Ultimately, by providing feedback and recognition you can build trust, loyalty, and satisfaction with your vendors and customers.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?