You want your brand (or your client’s brand) to get some serious social media attention? Let’s show you how.
First, let’s make sure we all understand that social media is the contact to customers, prospects, and brands with the sole purpose to establish a relationship through conversation. Social media marketing is the concept of engagement that entices the reader to interact or what is commonly known as CTA – the Call to Action, which is tied to the business function of generating revenue. A happy customer will return often and spend.
1. Content value – Your content should explain the why and how it is of great value to the customer.
2. Best practices – Social media’s engagement consists of 5 elements; be present, listen, publish, advertise, and link to a measurement tool determining the target’s hit and miss. Your audience wants to see that someone is “home” that they are present. So be sure to reply to comments on your social channels.
3. Terms of engagement – The audience takes the time to connect and appreciates your participation to create community goodwill while promoting a brand. Your interaction is an opportunity to chat about the target’s interests, complaints and the competition’s strengths and weakness to deliver.
4. Voice – This aspect of marketing is critical because it defines the brand, and creates the public image equivalent to the expectations of service. Is the voice casual and helpful, authoritative or demanding? In today’s diverse market, does the campaign’s grassroots include influencers attracting followers?
5. Platforms – Stats and technology support shorter messages for obtaining higher review counts. Social media is active, so are the users and they are growing in numbers expecting authenticity and trust. Give it to them and they start talking and telling the community of their experiences.
6. Become a follower – There comes a time when taking a step back to watch reveals hidden opportunities for improving business and strengthening the relationships. You don’t have to lead all the time, but you must direct and should influence using best social media practices as part of the conversation.
7. Measurements – Monitor the competitive posts within the industry, keep an open mind of positive and negative feeds and convert them into an advantage. Did you miss a new development? Are there new perspectives from the buyer’s side? These views tend to be new prospects opening a market segment that’s underutilized – these are new leads, and new issues leading to new sales.
Analytics are your best friend. For you to maximize your presence you want to test, analyze and re-engage your audience based on your metrics. There are many tools to help you monitor and track. Each social media platform has their won individual place to gather metrics. Google Analytics helps you dial in with overall traffic to your website and track where it is specifically traffic is coming from coming from. There are also third-party tools that help you for better overall time management. Agorapulse which helps with management of many social platforms. You can monitor, follow, share and report all through one dashboard.
8. Get Involved – Be honest and open with the community. Thank them for sharing. Invite other followers and guest bloggers to add comments. These gestures are priceless influences to niche market conditions and segments for future advertising. Don’t be surprised at how many prospects turn into customers and loyal brand followers become eager to see what’s coming down the pipeline next.
9. Share Information – Always give enough information and share it through multiple mobile apps to include videos, events and meetings with the community. This simple action tells the customer base where they need to be and reaffirms the source.
10. Branding – Overall be consistent. Even though the formatting may change with each platform, the message and content of delivery should be consistent across the board – leaving an unwavering impression for the first time and longtime followers that shouts not whispers the brand.
Social media marketing should hear the customer’s voice and present the image using social media platforms, keeping the content simple, updating posts with relevant and interesting information directed at the intended customer base.
Something to keep in mind: social media best practices for agencies is based on data-driven marketing strategies, utilizing automated technologies. Be creative with content to capture attention. Think along the lines of supportive articles, charts, and infographics linking to related conversations — making it effortless for the reader to simply click.
What kind of struggles do you find in grabbing attention in our ever-changing social media landscape? Share in the comments below!
