What social platform is right for your digital strategy?
At Stunn, we think about the wider strategy and long-term goals. Part of this strategy could be to get your business circulating on social media which must work alongside and collaborate with your overall business objectives.
Not every social media platform is suitable for your business. If your target market isn’t there, why would you be? Instead of taking a gung-ho approach and using every platform out there, take a more considered, strategic approach to your digital strategy. It's the way you’ll see the benefits, save precious time and your hard-earned cash.
Linking your social media channel to your business’s high-level strategy is crucial. There needs to be a good reason to go with a specific platform, or three, or more.
Before you even think about signing up to a social platform, you need to define your overall business goals, determine the elements will be driven by social media and what platform will help you to achieve that – all of which should bring you back to deciding what your business needs to achieve with social media.
Once you’ve figured that out, you can move onto getting started.
Where is your target audience?
Which platform you choose is going to be dictated by where your target audience is. If you’re planning on using more than one, the platform will be dictated by the type of content you plan to share.
Facebook’s psyche is to build communities and bring the world together. The platform is geared towards marketing businesses and welcomes them with options to create ad campaigns, build groups, host live chats and insights.
Facebook’s UK statistics for 2019 are pretty good going. 78% of internet users use Facebook and 40 million people can be reached with Facebook ads (these are Facebook Audience Insights so maybe slightly bias, however, I think they are a good guide). In terms of age, 62% of people aged 50-65+ have an account on Facebook. Social media isn’t just for the ‘youngsters’ anymore.
If you’re great at producing video and visuals, Facebook could be a smart choice for a few reasons…
- Videos get more reach than any other type of Facebook post on average
- Facebook is investing significantly in video to make it easier to share and find
- It’s become cheaper and more desirable to produce videos with easier accessibility to software, tools and technology
- Consumers are more willing to go to Facebook for video content, instead of YouTube or Vimeo
With the growth of video on Facebook, comes even more growth as people want to jump on the bandwagon. Facebook consumers now expect to see some great videos. Brands have become more inclined to post videos directly on Facebook, instead of sharing YouTube videos on Facebook. They’ve cut out the middleman.
Don’t be put off by Facebook having a larger following, Twitter can be a great tool in the sales and marketing department of your business. I like to think of Twitter as a quick, no faff platform which is good for things like company updates, eyeing up the competition, sharing other people’s content and connecting with your customers.
Twitter is driven by its tight 280 character limit for each tweet. Other than that ‘rule’, you’re able to post all types of media – video, photos, SlideShares, links and share other people’s content too. Even though you have these options, the kind of content which tends to gain the most engagements is pretty simple: short, sweet text snippets accompanied by an image or Gif – achievable for all companies.
With the ability to display support hours, enable direct messages and to turn on the ‘support’ option, Twitter is one of the best platforms for customer support to directly interact with your customers to demonstrate that you care. Just be a little careful with complaints or issues which will be seen by the public as these will need to be managed.
Tweets are also indexed by Google in real time, therefore are beneficial to your SEO. Make sure that you post updates frequently to increase the chance of your tweets being seen.
Instagram was always designed for mobile use, while Twitter and Facebook have evolved for mobile. It has a clean, simple to use design. If you don’t have much visual content to offer, this probably won’t be the best platform for you to use. Great for companies of any size which provide physical products as it requires quality photos and video. Instagram also allows you to sell your product through it, giving you the ability to make money directly through the platform.
The written content aspect of the platform is an interesting one too. There isn’t a limit to the amount of text you can post with an image, giving you the opportunity to tell stories and be descriptive. Hashtags are definitely a big thing on the platform too so make sure you utilise them to push your posts out into specific communities and topics.
Snapchat
Originally intended for friends to share photos with each other, only for the imagery to disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat is a visual channel with approximately 187 million daily users, but be careful, the channel is predominantly used by Generation Z (those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s), so if your product is for the over-50s, this channel may not be your best bet. Generation Z is dedicated to social media, so if they’re your target, make sure you post regularly, offer discount and promo codes and get social influencers involved – they love all that.
Snapchat ads are a nice way to gain traction with your target audience too. Whether you want to increase brand awareness, engagement, app installs, lead generation or catalog sales, the platform is a simple, straight-forward way to optimise that.
Probably best for companies which are B2B, LinkedIn is a professional platform which is great to build relationships with potential customers and hopefully convert them into solid leads. According to the 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry report, LinkedIn is more important to B2B marketing than Facebook.
Think about the type of content you release – LinkedIn is big on video, but also consider the kind of thing you’re sending to your target market via messaging or email. Send them something of value to them, like an interesting article you’ve found to help start a conversation and build a relationship – a tip though – aggressive sales messages don’t tend to go down well. Start slow and lead with your personality.
Customers are more likely to buy from somebody they trust, and a strong LinkedIn profile is a great way to build that trust. It reassures them that they’re dealing with a professional person when you’ve left a content trail on LinkedIn.
The platform cannot only be used to sell your product to the right people, but you can also use it to recruit the best people to work for your company, to monitor what your competitors are doing and increase your chances of ranking in Google.
Humanising your brand
Think about the most well-known brands across the western world – Amazon. Microsoft. It’s quite likely that you know the story behind them and how they started. Knowing the humble beginning of successful companies influences our opinions of them positively – we relate to them, we respect them, they’re just like us. It makes them real. This ‘we’re just like them’ attitude can be an effective part of your business growth strategy.
So how do I do this? There are many methods you can take to humanise your brand:
Storytelling
The story you tell about your brand must connect with your customers, be honest about your past struggles (as long as it doesn’t weaken your customer’s trust in you) and be transparent. Honesty is key as it allows your audience to have an emotional connection with your brand.
Behind-the-scenes
Don’t be afraid to share content and talk about your team, office, customers and company culture to help your customers get to know you on a more personal level. Nowadays, people don’t just buy your product, they need to buy into your brand values first. Share videos and photos, both new and old to show how genuine and human you are.
Be grateful
For your customer to think of you as more than just a business, you need to show how there’s more to your venture than making money. Show how much it means to you, then it should start to mean something to them too.
Since we were children we’ve been attracted to stories, especially the ones which pull on our heartstrings. To gain some inspiration, look further into the companies you aspire to be – what are their stories? How does it strengthen how you see them? Maybe they’ve decided to not to tell a story? Would this personally affect your purchasing of their product or service?
Extra tips for a good social media strategy for your business
The most successful social media strategies are those which are consistent. It takes a fair bit of time to build some traction from marketing your business on social media – dependent on the platform, your target market and the product you’re selling.
Here are a couple of other points which could help you to push your social media in the right direction for your business:
- Always remind yourself of the intentions of your social media accounts and campaigns.
It can be so easy to lose track of the purpose of why you’re creating content and posting on your social media platforms, so make sure always consistent by asking yourself questions like: why am I posting this? Does this post fit with what the business is about?
- Ensure that you plan a series of social media posts
To save time and material, try creating a series of posts around one piece of content. Do this with various pieces of content and then mix up the dates you post them, and you’ll soon have a large quantity of content to post on your social media accounts.
- Create a calendar to schedule when you need to post content
A great time saver, creating a big calendar as a plan for when you’re going to post onto your platforms is good for ensuring your accounts remain consistent and varied which should help to bring in more engagement.
- Frequently review changes in your target markets behaviour on social media
In a world where trends come and go at speed, be aware of the changes in your target markets behaviour on social media. It can also vary greatly from platform to platform, so keep your eyes peeled.
- Build relationships
The beauty of social media is that it allows you to have direct communication with your customers and followers – both instant and over time. Always respond to appropriate comments and messages on social media. It will be visible to other potential customers, so how you deal with it can influence of them becoming a customer.
- Posting tools
There are loads of tools to use to make your life easier when posting content, especially when you’d like to schedule it in advance, and you’ve got a large quantity of it. Try Buffer or Hubspot to schedule, Google Trends and Feedly for finding trending topics, Canva for creating imagery and Bitly to track the success of links.
Just make a decision!
Hopefully, you’ve acquired an insight into which platforms would be best for your business and customers. Don’t rush in choosing the right platform for your digital strategy – it could waste time and budget if it’s wrong. It’s likely that your social media strategy won’t be perfect off the bat, however, making the right decision early on will make the development to a successful strategy easier to achieve.
Long story short Instagram requires good imagery, Twitter needs short and sweet text, LinkedIn is if your customers are businesses, Facebook is great for video content and Snapchat is run by the under 24 year-olds.
Your social media strategy is an aspect of your overall digital strategy, so should work collaboratively alongside your other marketing methods and striving for the same goal.
If you’d like to speak to somebody about your overall digital strategy and how it ties in with social media marketing – content, ads and e-commerce, you’re welcome to contact me via email at [email protected] or call me directly on 0121 616 0093.