So you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even possibly a Google+ account for your business. You post on these platforms fairly regularly – but you’re a little miffed at the fact that your phone isn’t ringing off the hook with customers, or that your posts haven’t gone viral.
What are those seemingly savvy business people doing that makes their social media marketing so effective?
In this post, we identify the top 5 C’s of social media. These are the areas you need to consider to steer your business toward social media marketing success.
Creativity
Before you do anything further with your social media marketing – put together a solid social media marketing strategy. Why does this fall under the banner of creativity? Well think about how you could put your individual spin on how you engage with your audience. Perhaps it’s a particular choice of language you want to use throughout or maybe you want to ensure you go the visual route with stunning infographics, videos and so forth. Think out the box and create a strategy that enables your business to be memorable!
By way of example -read more about two incredibly successful social media campaigns – one launched by Old Spice and the other by US based firm – Dollar Shave Club – in this finweek article. What is particularly relevant is the fact that the Dollar Shave Club launched their campaign as a start-up eCommerce company and did so on a low budget. Creativity needn’t cost big bucks!
Community
Once you have decided on your creative social media marketing strategy and campaign, you need to:
- Start engaging a community of fans or followers – your website, newsletters and email stationary should enable clients to click through to your social media pages;
- Establish a campaign that entices them to follow you;
- Keep them engaged with high quality, useful and relevant content;
- Also engage with affiliates to your business (other people or companies that also have potential customers for you) – become a fan of their page & link to them from your content.
Content
Not only should you be getting in-house personnel involved in creating content, but you should also be sharing every available marketing resource you have at your disposal. This approach has a term – ‘Diversified Content Strategy’.
- Develop quality content that engages your target market;
- Offer content with lots of variety (links to your blog posts, videos, relevant images, white papers, how-to manuals etc.
Conversation
Let’s get back to basics quickly on this one. A conversation is simply a discussion, a sharing of sentiments, and an exchange of observations or opinions. Social media by its very nature is designed to stimulate conversation and communication between people. So ensure that you consistently add value to fans and followers in a personalised way – be natural.
Building trust and creating that conversation can take time – don’t expect overnight success. If you do have overnight success -good for you, but it usually takes time.
We mentioned the Dollar Shave Club earlier in this post. Take a look at their Facebook page. They offer variety and interest on their page, they align with current news and they invite and engage in conversation with their followers.
Consistency and Cohesion
Apart from ensuring you engage in conversation with your audience regularly (aim for at least 3 times per week), you need to ensure consistency and cohesion in your overall message.
- Keep your message and tone consistent with a central brand theme (look at the Dollar Shave Club Facebook page again and it’ll become clear)
- Promote your unique culture and ‘business personality’. That business culture of yours that your customers appreciate – needs to be translated across all the conversations you are creating online.
For too many businesses, their social media engagement is either a half-hearted attempt at keeping current, or simply a self-adulating platform. When used strategically, honest, personalised social media marketing that aims to uplift rather than flaunt can have an exceptionally positive impact on your business.
A solid strategy remains the catalyst to success. Do this first and do it well, ensure you have all your t’s crossed and i’s dotted in all the other considerations we’ve mentioned above and there is no doubt that over time social media will earn its right of place in your marketing plan.
