With social media, as with the majority of marketing, there are plenty of companies who use it as a tool and pour an incredible amount of money into a strategy without knowing much about what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.
Social media is constantly changing, and small changes to platforms like Facebook and Twitter can impact the effectiveness of your business. So how can you know that you’re being effective on social media?
This exact question is the difference behind having an amateur or an intern in charge of your social media marketing, and using professionals to market your brand through media that becomes more powerful every single day.
Here are a few ways that SMC helps our clients get the most out of their social media (they can help you make your social media more effective, too):
- Know Your Audience. Something that plenty of businesses forget in their marketing strategy is that customers these days are not stupid. They know what they want, and they know what they don’t want. Most importantly, they know when a business is authentic or fake, and this applies to marketing strategy as well.
- A social media strategy doesn’t work unless time is spent truly understanding your audience–who you’re talking to, and who you want to be talking to. There’s no point beating your head against a wall. Instead, take the time and expend the effort to go around that wall and find your new best customer on the other side—one that wants to be listening.
- Analyze and React. You can check your Facebook Insights 1,000 times a day, but that information will be absolutely useless unless you know what to do with it and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly. 78% of your followers are female and online at 9:00 a.m., checking your page? Target your message to shoot out at 9:00 a.m. to something that 34-45 year old females would click on and read.
- A stagnant strategy is the death of social media. As your business grows, so will the habits and inclinations of your followers. Reacting and being flexible enough to understand that is vital to growing your following and increasing interaction.
- Share, Share, Share. Ever heard of “going viral?” It’s the goal of many marketers—to find the next gold mine of content that can explode exponentially into a million eyes on your page. Know what your readers are most likely to share and when. A larger audience means more interaction, more eyes likely to read, and more customers or supporters likely to follow—and who can argue with that?
One of the benefits of working with us at Social Media Contractors is that precise engagement isn’t one of those vague, mysterious things that may or may not be happening–we measure, analyze, and ensure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing spend. No more sketchy insights, no more questionable responses of why to persist with a strategy that isn’t working: We truly believe that your marketing should see real, tangible results.
Back in 2013, Business Insider reported that budgets for social media are only getting larger (in fact, 9% of marketing budgets from top marketers are devoted exclusively to social media) and this trend only continues into 2014.
Image credit: CC by Social Media Contractors
