Social media isn’t “new” anymore, but let’s all admit – as new channels and features have emerged, so too have new obstacles and complications. We’ve gone from having a few big-name social players to living in a world where we share life updates, research and engage with brands, brainstorm ideas, coordinate musical tastes and grow our careers in 10 different places.
For a brand – this can be extremely overwhelming. When looking at today’s colorful menu of social media channels, where should a brand start? Where should they be? How should they behave?
In this article, we cover four big tips to help any brand establish and build a successful, booming social media presence.
1. Take A Closer Look At Your Audience
The first mistake brands make when looking at social media is just diving right in. Social isn’t some magical solution to tap into. You need to first look at your audience. Specifically, you are going to look at the following things when analyzing your customer base for social media marketing purposes.
Identify the following things about your consumer base and social media:
- What social media platforms do they use? [Here you can get a list of all the social channels you may want to consider]
- What category of content do they look for in each platform? [You’re looking to find where you may be relevant to them.]
- Workout posts, fashion, health tips, photography products, job postings, etc.
- How do they use each platform? [You’re looking to understand their behaviors and how they match up with a consumer journey stage (exploration, consideration, shopping).]
- Are they sharing photos and/or videos?
- Are they connecting with/following/engaging with friends and family or brands and influencers more?
- Are they commenting, liking or saving posts?
- Are they watching videos? How long are they watching?
- Which platforms are they shopping on?
2. Outline Your Social Media Channel Guide Chart
The second mistake brands make on social is not clearly outlining the use cases, purpose(s) and goal(s) of each social channel they’re going to use. Creating a simple chart to help with this will serve as a foundational framework for more detailed social media strategy and campaign development.
Your channel guide chart will have a column for each social channel and include the following information:
- Purpose of the channel. (Provide information about upcoming products and promote blogs and videos highlighting how to use products in everyday life.)
- Type of content you will use there (videos, pictures, etc.)
KPIs for the channel (Views, link clicks, etc.)
Suggest adding an image as an example here.
3. Draw Your Social Media Consumer Flow Map
Similar to how your business has a consumer flow journey mapped out, now you will want to do one specifically for social media. Using the data, you gathered from Step 1 and the framework of Step 2, for each audience your business utilizes, you’ll want to map out how they interact with social media channels.
The goal of this map is to identify what social channels will drive traffic into your site (either first-touch or retargeting), and what social channels will be used for engaging your audience ongoing.
NOTE: You will finish this map in Step 4!
The first two things your social media consumer flow map should have include:
- The first-touch social channels that drive engagement with brand content and/or traffic to your website. These are where your audience sees your brand or product for the first time and is encouraged to engage in some way (i.e., follow your page, click a link, or watch a video).
- You should also identify how you think consumers will find first discover these brand social channels. This may include targeted paid ads, promoted posts, search terms, hashtags, organically, or @tags. List these under each social channel.
- All the destination(s) you will be driving them to (landing page, blog, contact form) on your website.
4. Identify And Map Out Your KPIs
You already know your business goals online. Email capture. Product purchase. Book an appointment. All of these are applicable to social media efforts. But you also have more. The second step to developing a strong social media presence is to outline your KPIs and then map them against the consumer journey flow.
- End your flow map with the primary and secondary KPIs you are aligning to the social flow map. These are the final actions or behaviors you are hoping to see occur. These should be specifically listed out to separate KPIs that are engagement focused from those that are acquisition based.
Success Starts with Strategy but Wins with Content and Budget
While it’s hard to compete for audience’s eyes and clicks in today’s digitized world, you can succeed if you develop a social media strategy that is built specifically to match your audience’s behaviors, mindset, social media preferences and your business goals.
Plan ahead for creative content and campaigns
Once your strategy is outlined, the next step is to develop a social media content plan. This should essentially be a source-of-truth map for the entire year of all the content and campaigns you’ll run on each social channel.
Some tips to keep in mind when developing the content for each channel:
- Design with purpose in mind (A post for link clicks won’t be the same as one for comments)
- Adhere to channel best-practices (make sure formatting, style and length are optimal for the channel you’re using)
- Only post the content that’s right for the channel (if users don’t look at one channel for video, don’t use video there)
- Design social ads with a less is more mentality – pick the right copy, the right imagery but don’t flood the consumer’s senses or shove your brand in their face. Consumers appreciate and area appealed to ads that quickly tap into their personal emotional spectrum and provide value and connection.
- Watch industry influencers and competitors. Especially if you’re a new player, look at what others are doing well and how you can learn from this. Conversely, watch what others are doing wrong and avoid this.
Bring the budget to the forefront
Unfortunately, organic social media just isn’t as effective anymore. No longer can you just post links and photos and see immediate growth or engagement (unless you’re a fitness model on Instagram). And unfortunately, organic social media reach has been severely declining since 2019. As Hootsuite says, “It’s no secret that most social platforms operate on a pay-to-play model for brands.”
“The average reach of an organic post on a Facebook Page hovers around 5.20%. That means roughly one in every 19 fans sees the page’s non-promoted content.” Hootsuite, Organic Reach is in Decline—Here’s What You Can Do About It
As a final note, make sure once you have a strategy outlined for where you need to be in social media and how you’ll behave, that you also have earmarked budget to support content post promotion and paid advertising campaigns. Brands that don’t do this quickly get frustrated when they don’t achieve their goals or see major growth month-over-month. A paid social media budget is a necessity if you want to compete in your industry, but more importantly, it’s a requirement if you even want to be seen.
