Spotlight on Digital Marketing - Social Media

We wanted to continue our series on digital marketing with an overview of the most interactive technology in this era – Social Media.

In our line of work, I think social media is often misunderstood and therefore under-utilised. The main criticisms I hear include that it’s not for ‘selling’, it’s only people showing off their dinner/oversharing some other information that people aren’t interested in, and that it’s difficult to measure its success.

These are all valid points!

Whilst we know that social media use can be problematic in the wrong hands, we also know that businesses have built and expanded their brand, and ultimately revenue, using their social media reach.

So what can you achieve from social media?

It’s your business’s chance to directly interact with your customers directly, and encourage them to participate, especially with images and video where relevant. This can only help to build stronger relationships with your customers, and be ‘front of mind’.

Used properly, it can also be a platform where your customers recommend you/share/like/discuss you on their own social media pages, in turn allowing you to organically grow your reach and brand awareness.

Remember the people that are following you on social media have made that choice to follow you, and so they’re a captive audience, even if they may be small in number initially. It’s your chance to show off the people and personality of your business in a way that no other platform can!

What’s important to remember when running social media platforms?

First and foremost, the point is to be front of mind for your customers, so you have to be regular and consistent in your approach. Plan ahead so you can schedule posts, run competitions and gain interactions along the way.

Secondly, be responsive! If people send you messages, enquiries or questions, respond to them within a short timeframe.

Find your audience – you know your target audience better than anyone, so be proactive and find them online. Tailor your content to attract and then retain them. Give them content that they will like/share/comment on, to allow their network to see you.

It’s important to know your platform – LinkedIn is traditionally a more professional, business-to-business platform, whereas Instagram needs to be driven by good images and video. Facebook can be more relaxed, and Twitter is all about brief snippets of information. What you’d share on Facebook might not necessarily translate on LinkedIn for example.

Finally, and probably most importantly, have something interesting to talk about! Your social media should be a mix of information about your business, promotional material and more informal posts. Mix it up and don’t be afraid to try something new! The more images and videos you have, the more interaction you’ll see on posts, but this isn’t necessarily a requirement for each post. Keep it interesting!

Does this sound like it’ll take too much time?

This is where outsourcing the set-up of your pages and posts can come into play. Professionally set up, a social media page can look engaging, consistent by using proper branding guidelines so it’s instantly recognisable and shareable.

A post schedule can be put in place to ensure you’re planning ahead together with expertly written copy and eye-catching design on images.

Finally, this can be blended with a targeted PPC ad campaign, across the relevant platforms, to target new users with sponsored ads and content to maximise your potential reach.

This doesn’t mean you can’t add posts to your own pages – the more the merrier! It just means you can have the peace of mind that someone is running your sites and reaching your customers regularly, so you can concentrate on everything else that comes with running a business.

Sound good? We'd love to talk to you to see how we can give you some time back.

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