Complete guide on social media in 2019

Marketing must constantly adapt to new technologies. And although social media is already well established in the landscape, many companies have not yet made the habit of using them or have not yet addressed the issue. Here is our guide to put their foot in the stirrup.

What is social media marketing?

This is a type of marketing that comes down on social media platforms. As one might expect, this notion includes a very diverse array of activities that only have social media in common. So if you want to promote a blog or organize a recruitment campaign, and if it is done in connection with Facebook or Twitter is that it is social media marketing.

Should you be marketing on social media?

Social media marketing has become a must for all kinds of businesses and organizations. Social media gives you access to a huge audience through free or paid public ads that you can shape and develop yourself.

Of course, in fact, all this is not really "free". Indeed, someone is supposed to spend some time posting on social platforms, but it is possible to perform miracles even with a very limited time.

Social media marketing does not work for everyone, and it would be a mistake to see it as an easy and inexpensive way to make money. The most successful strategies take into account the company's planning and fit into its overall strategy. Different company, different approach. But we will come back to it.

The bottom line is that social media marketing has huge potential for most businesses, even if it's not just about posting a few messages for sales to increase.

In fact, most of the strategies adopted on social media are not exclusive or revolutionary - it is simply a matter of adapting old recipes to new types of media.

Where to start ?

The first thing to do is to define your approach by drawing up a list of objectives to be achieved. As we said before, your approach to social media will depend entirely on your company.

For example, a company that has a product for sale and a charity will develop different approaches. In general, here are the ideas that a business and a non-profit organization might have.

Conduct an audit of your presence on social media

First, take stock of your current position. If you have no social channel, this is not a problem - the audit is complete and you can get to work.

Otherwise, whatever your position in the company, you'll want to know:

On which channels you are active.

If some channels work much better, or worse than others?

What types of posts have and have not worked in the past?

If the audience following you is relevant to your business?

If some channels need to be cleaned? This may be the case for getting rid of irrelevant or outdated content (this is a recurring problem with YouTube).

What you should not post

There are many examples of companies, big or small, tweeting an inappropriate message and biting their fingers. Whether it's a bad joke of a poorly formulated opinion, social media can be a double-edged sword if you're not careful.

There are no exact rules on the type of posts to avoid. Again, it depends on you and your business. Humorous web pages can be as off-kilter as they want, they always fall on their feet even when they push the plug too far. This is not necessarily the case for your company.

Think about the style of your brand. Nothing prevents you from publishing jokes and memes, as long as it is relevant to you and your audience. Social media is sometimes the scene of small provocations, but often the game is not worth the candle.

Sit down and meditate on the following. Make sure the person who writes your posts knows the reputation the company has forged and keeps. Make a list of topics to ban. And do not write in marble the operation of your customer service, to keep a good reaction flexibility.

In addition, do not just spam your followers by sending them links to buy your products. We do not go on Twitter to do window shopping, even if that does not mean that we do not enjoy ourselves from time to time.

There is nothing wrong with posting a few sales posts here and there, but think about your message. Sharpen the curiosity of the public about your product rather than put it under the nose at all times hoping that it takes out his credit card.

Understand platforms

We will not go through all platforms, it's up to you to find out what works and how. The formulas are multiple, just like the public. A good word can fly on Twitter, but for LinkedIn, it is better concrete messages based on specific advice.

Learn about the algorithms of different platforms and spend some time on each of them to get an idea of how they work.

Customize your messages as they should for better engagement, more traffic, and sustained interest.

Set up an adapted customer service

Customer service deserves a chapter. Too often, companies undermine their reputation by not taking social media complaints seriously or making fun of them.

Social media gives us fast and easy access to businesses. No need to make a call, and no need to go to the Post Office. Just go to their Facebook page to complain - and everyone has access to the result. Nothing to do with what was done before.

The relationship with your audience is essential. Of course, the complaint may be unfair and unfounded, but you still need to interact with the users in a professional manner.

Putting them in their place would be useless, and would tend to draw attention to your business for the wrong reasons.

Building a community in an organic way

This is one of the hardest things to achieve if you are not a big recognized brand. There is no simple method, but rather a variety of different means.

You will have to arm yourself with patience.

Take your time and do it in the rules of the art: you will end up having an audience that really engage with you.

Here are some steps to follow at first:

- Create content that people are likely to share and that will be seen by users beyond your network.

- Be a useful reference for people who use your products and services.

Let users know through other means of communication that you are on social channels.

- Talk about the content of others, not just yours, and build relationships with them.

- Stay always interesting or useful.

Although it's about Camilo Cabella's fans, the following interview is full of great tips for growing a social community.

Shareable content on social media

The creation of "shareable content on social media" is a recommendation that often lacks precision.

What is shareable content? What makes it shareable? Where is it found?

The best advice I've read about this is in two books worth their weight in gold: Jonah Berger's Contagious and Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick. You can find them at very affordable prices.

To discover some of the topics and tips of Contagious find here a diagram and a quick talk by Jonah Berger. In the end, if a manufacturer of blenders can become viral, other companies have no excuse.

Paid social advertising

It's the main course, with companies spending billions of dollars around the world reaching their audience through Twitter, Facebook and others. Moreover, concerning Facebook, it should be noted that some organizations that took advantage of their advertising platform to influence the political opinions of users are currently in the spotlight.

But do not be discouraged. The pressure is increasing so that social platforms are more open and transparent in their operation, and as long as you follow the rules and do things right, everything will be fine.

Paid ads on social media are not really different from regular ads. It's always about targeting a specific segment of the population via a message to them. The only difference is that you can use the data collected on social media to build 100% personalized target audiences.

Calendars and programming

Another element to take into account is your publication frequency. This depends largely on your strategy and the type of positions you will create.

For example, some content publishers publish a lot, because they constantly create new stories and new articles, and they know for sure that their followers are on the lookout for this kind of content.

For a company, it's a little different. It is very possible that you do not produce regular content, but do not think that posting on Twitter all day is an obligation. Users are quickly tired of seeing the same press release looping.

Many people have also set up calendars to program a large number of messages that will be published automatically. This approach is appropriate for some people and not others. Other strategies involve a more instantaneous approach where you only plan a few hours in advance.

If you have a large number of posts to post, do not forget to keep an eye on the news to make sure that the news of the day will not make them seem out of place or in bad taste.

Finally, adopt a different programming for each platform. For example, publishing at any time on Facebook will not work, while on Twitter users are used to regular publications. The best thing to do is to test and refine to see what works for you and your followers.