MENU

PHONE

EMAIL

The power of online communications

Peter Garrett

DATE: 17th August 2020
CATEGORY: acquisition
TAGS: content strategy, marketing strategy, social marketing
AUTHOR: Peter Garrett


Showcasing your business online

Social media marketing is an integral part of today’s virtual communication that helps businesses increase brand awareness, loyalty and customer engagement. Companies are using a variety of social media platforms to complement their overall marketing strategy.

So how can social media marketing help you achieve your goals?

• Increases website traffic
• Builds conversions
• Raises brand awareness
• Creates a brand identity and positive brand association
• Improves communication and interaction with key audiences

With a clear understanding of your goals, Serenity Digital can help you create a successful social media marketing strategy to suit your needs and goals.

A captive audience

“97% of digital consumers have used social media in the past month”. Hootsuite

Social media has the potential to be extremely successful for businesses based on the volume of users. Everyone is a potential customer, so the importance of regular social media input is crucial. However, we see many businesses failing to tap into this market. They lack strategy, fail to post regularly and the ultimate cardinal sin - they don’t reply to customer questions, comments and feedback.

What we’re seeing

The social landscape will continue to grow every day, so businesses should never underestimate its power or neglect its ability to influence. Sadly, we are still seeing prospects who are falling foul of one (or many) of the following social media pitfalls:

POOR STRATEGY

The starting point for any social media campaign is research. How are your competitors using social media to engage with your audience? How will you communicate your message on the various platforms to account for a different demographic or medium? How will you alter your voice?

IRREGULAR POSTING

All too often we see businesses not integrating social media into their daily tasks. This level of activity is not enough to keep your audience interested and will only weaken your goal of improving brand awareness.

BRAND INCONSISTENCIES

With busy social feeds, it’s important to stand out and give your target audience the best possible chance to remember you and increase their engagement with your brand. Inconsistencies often occur when businesses don’t have brand guidelines and this allows different people within the company too much freedom over the content being posted.

TOO MANY PLATFORMS

It is all too easy for businesses to be overwhelmed with the variety of social media platforms on offer and having to produce content for all of them. This can ultimately lead to duplication or a lack of content. Remember, it is quality that matters, not quantity.

PURELY PROMOTIONAL

There is a fine balance to be reached when promoting your products or services to your followers and prospective customers. Brands that only ever try to sell lose engagement.

“45% of consumers will unfollow a brand on social media if their platform is dominated by self-promotion.” (BuzzStream)

Invest now to reap the benefits

An engaging brand should use social media platforms on a regular basis to suit its business. With a well thought out strategy, companies can deliver a successful return on their investment in online communications. Our 10 tips below will help put your social media plans into action.

1. PUT YOURSELF IN YOUR AUDIENCE’S SHOES

What does your audience want to know? Why are they following you? How do they know about you? This is your opportunity to research what your competitors are saying to the same audience. This is also your chance to outshine them!

2. BRAINSTORM CONTENT IDEAS AHEAD OF TIME

Investing time upfront to set out content categories, will save you time in the long run. Ask your team for their thoughts to get a comprehensive range of ideas that will allow you to engage with your audience for months to come.

3. CREATE A SCHEDULE

Whilst this doesn’t have to be completely rigid to allow for business developments throughout the year, it should follow a set timetable with daily, weekly and monthly tasks. Everyone involved should also know their individual responsibilities. This robust system will ensure your business is consistent and on time.

4. DON’T JUST SELL, SELL, SELL

Social media is more of an informal marketing channel, so the ratio of promotional and informative content must be right. Demonstrate that you are experts in your field, share industry best practice and impart useful advice. This is what users will remember and will give your brand a boost. Sales will look after themselves as people buy from credible businesses.

5. ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

Developing a strategy that outlines how and when to reply to post comments is just as important as actual posting. Being responsive and replying to comments (both positive and negative) in the right way will do wonders for your brand reputation.

6. SET UP CONVERSION TRACKING

Tracking performance is key to improving results over time especially if you are investing time and money across different platforms. Seeing how metrics compare from one form to another will allow you to shape and tweak future campaigns and resource requirements.

7. DON’T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT

Make sure your social media content is varied so you don’t lose customer focus. The beauty of social media posts is that you can watch their engagement. If you always post links to websites, try something more visual or more interactive so customers can engage with your brand on a more personal level.

8. SHOW OFF YOUR PERSONALITY

Be yourself on social media. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. You need to build your brand by being authentic rather than someone you think your customers would like to see.

9. FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS

Don’t try and be everything to all people. Trying to keep up posting across every available social media platform will be exhausting and you will come to regard it as a chore. Instead, focus your efforts on a few. Instead of diluting your brand, your strengths will lie on focusing upon several rather than too many.

10. BE PASSIONATE!

Show the passion of your brand in your social media posts and your customers will follow your commitment. It is widely acknowledged that passion will help you post fantastic content.

Get involved…

Whilst some companies struggle to make time for social media marketing and don’t know how to adapt across different platforms, businesses can succeed in making significant returns by being aware of the pitfalls and tackling them head on. If you get your social media marketing strategy right, you will witness a rise in customer engagement, brand loyalty and profitability.

To learn more about how social media marketing campaigns can help you towards achieving your objectives, please get in touch.

« All blogs

Interested to learn more?