Do Social Media Well

Social media, most used but least effective tactic??

According to a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, social media is the most used activity; however, the same study also reveals that social media is the least effective tactic. (Many other studies reveal the same results)

With social media it’s easy to confuse activity with results and it is easy to see how it happens; the need to publish daily, weekly and monthly quickly leads to feverish pressures to publish, and publish and publish.

Activity is not the same as results

Once you start on the path, the social media engine has an insatiable desire for content.

For the unprepared social media will quickly turn into a burden. Rather than risk creating a hole in their publishing presence, companies recycle old news or publish anything that is remotely related to prospects.

The result, predictably, is that it is ineffective. Or worse, you train your audience to ignore you because you are not worth listening to.

Some do Social Media well

But there are some who have a great deal of success with social media… how do they do it?

The most common Social Media questions we hear are:

• What should we write about?
• Where do we find content?
• How do we make it interesting to prospects and useful to us?

There is no way around it to be effective in social media (and all media) you need to plan what you are going to say, how you are going to say it and to keep it from consuming too much time, you need to know where you’re going to get your ideas and content.

If you have to go search for content every time you need to post you will quickly run out of ideas and time.

Bore your audience and you train them to ignore you

A little planning and use of the right tools makes it much easier.

The Secret

The easiest way to guarantee social media success is to use it to improve existing marketing campaigns, not define new ones. In other words, design your social media to:

• Promote offers you make to your prospects: events, shows, specials, new products
• Inform your prospects by promoting whitepapers, reports, and how to articles
• Engage your fans and followers with questions, answers, surveys and contests

There really are a variety of uses for Social media. It has elements of customer service, networking, user groups, PR, presentations, trade shows, drip marketing, water cooler conversations, competitive intelligence, and market research.

Organize it around these themes and it will be easier to produce and at the same time it will be more effective.

Social media for lead generation, research and testing

When done well the value of social media reaches beyond engagement; it improves search results leading to more web visits.

Got an idea for a new product? Or for a new marketing campaign? Test it in on social media. Build on successful posts by expanding on the ideas and concepts. The feedback you get may not be decisive but it is fast and informative.

Listening / Market Research

There is a lot of blather on social channels but there is also a lot of rich information about your markets and your competitors.  Monitoring that information (listening) can be a structured and straight forward process in about 15 minutes a day.  

Developing content processes

Often your best stories are deep in the organization far removed from your designated social media intern or even further from your outsourced social media company. Connecting your content and mapping it to your social media, web site and emails allows you to efficiently distribute it. We can help you connect the two.

We will help you be effective and efficient in your use of social media. Whether just getting started or experienced we will help you get the most out of your social media.

New to Social media we can help you select appropriate channels and develop processes so that you don’t drown from the regular need for content.

If you are experienced with social media we can help you improve your social engagement, search results and lead generation.

Including:

Contact Us to explore how you can tackle social media and engage your audience.