17877227 – social media
Social media marketing should be a key component of the marketing mix for virtually any company. Not only is social media marketing relatively inexpensive, it also provides a greater level of engagement than mass marketing efforts because it’s targeted at those who have some connection with your brand—shared interests, common connections, etc. At the same time, many companies pay lip service to social media marketing. They are technically doing it, but they aren’t putting in as much effort as they could, or should.
Based on our experience in social media marketing for our own sites and our client sites, and ongoing review, research and analysis in this area, we have some suggestions to help you boost the odds that your social media marketing efforts are generating results.
Stay Active
Social media is all about engagement. It’s hard for any audience to stay engaged with a social media outlet that posts something new once every couple of months. Visitors to your social media pages come because they want to see fresh content. This doesn’t mean you need to post a new whitepaper every other day. Posts can be short and concise, as long as they are engaging and relevant to your market. Determine a publishing schedule that will work for you, and your audience, and commit to stick to it. We guarantee it will make a difference.
Stay Relevant
There are a lot of great tools to automate social media content, but that doesn’t mean you should set it and forget it. It’s fine to create a calendar of posts that goes out even several months as long as they aren’t time-sensitive or seasonal. Be careful about incorporating breaking news into that mix, because if it’s too far out in your calendar, that news won’t be relevant by the time you’re talking about it. Similarly, be flexible and be prepared to post some one-off content if something breaking occurs that is relevant to your audience.
Stay Engaged
What sets social media apart from other forms of marketing is engagement. Social media is, after all, social! When customers and consumers talk to you or mention you on social media, let them know you’ve heard them. They are expecting a response, and fast. According to Lithium, 78 percent of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour!
Stay Alert
Pay attention to what’s happening with your social media channels, and your competitors’ channels. Make sure you review metrics on a regular basis to continually monitor who is interacting with you, whether your numbers are growing or declining, the types of content that work best for your audience, and the types of content that proves to be most engaging. Again, do this with other sites as well as your own. This should certainly include competitive sites, but might also include sites you like to engage with or some of the top sites among social influencers. There’s always something new to learn!
Social media marketing requires some dedication and consistency, but it’s worth the effort. Anytime you can get potential consumers to seek out interactions with your brand, you’re doing something right.
About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Tags: digital marketing, facebook, Instagram, linkedin, marketing with social, Snapchat, Social Media, social media marketing, social media strategy, twitter