5 tips to excel at social and digital marketing
With so many social and digital media environments, keeping on top of it is essential. The great news is that social and digital media levels the playing field for businesses of all sizes, and most of it is free at the point of use. Posting on social media, publishing a blog on your website and curating an email campaign are ways to reach out to your existing and potential customers in an effective and cost efficient way, but there are challenges too. What is your message? How do you create a plan? How do you uphold your brand image and values, and position your expertise? And how to you cut through to really engage your audience and achieve a ROI?
The keys to success are many but we’ve highlighted just 5 ways to join up the social and digital dots so you have a consistent and effective approach.
Plan
At the heart of good practice is a plan. A plan gives you structure and certainty, and it creates a framework to ensure consistency. Start by mapping out a plan with your aims, objectives and KPIs from which you can focus on how content and messaging will achieve these aims.
Then create a schedule with more detail and work on your creative approach. It’s surprising how many businesses, particularly smaller enterprises, take an ad hoc approach and use different mediums in isolation. Social media, for example, is often used without interconnecting it with your website, blog and e-marketing. A plan brings clarity and structure, and it ensures you can evaluate activity using analytics to continually evolve and refine your strategy.
2. Know your audience & fish where the fish are
Successful campaigns start by understanding who your audience is, and where they’re active on social media. Use analytics tools and social insights to identify demographics, interests, and behaviours so your content resonates, and focus on the platforms they use the most i.e. fish where the fish are. Don’t invest too much time and energy on social platforms that your customers don’t use. Also, make sure you create content that they want or need to know, rather than basing it on what you want to say. Remember, people will always buy when they want or need to, not when you want them to.
Many businesses use social media as a sales and marketing tool to sell, but people go to social media to socialise, be entertained and have fun. Create a social experience that inspires, informs and educates, while positioning your brand, service and expertise to build loyalty, engagement and trust. If you want to sell, look at social marketing campaigns as a way of driving sales. Social media is not a search engine, so nurture relationships and try to resist selling. As a guide, apply the 80/20 rule - 80% value content and 20% marketing/promotion. This way you engage people and punctuate with opportunities to purchase or enquire.
The same is true for digital media - use blogs, post updates on your website and run e-mail marketing and/or text campaigns that reflect your social media content. This reinforces your message across several mediums and ensures that your social and digital communications are all joined together with one strategic goal in mind.
3. Create high quality content
Social and digital media is a visual environment, so make sure your content inspires and stops people in their tracks. Use videos, graphics and share experiences to to keep your audience interested. Platforms like Canva can help bring more energy to your posts and content, while helping you to create a distinct style that upholds your brand image. For example, if you’re a hair salon that specialises in extensions, your audience will be more inspired by seeing a client transformation and hearing their story, rather than a post offering 10% OFF extensions services with no reference to the amazing transformations you’re achieving. It’s all content but how you approach it and frame your expertise and quality can make all the difference.
4. Stay consistent and persistent
Social and digital media is not a silver bullet to success, it’s a journey. Manage your expectations and be realistic by staying consistent and persistent. Consistency builds trust. Post regularly, maintain a recognisable tone of voice, and ensure branding is cohesive across platforms. Don’t panic post - make sure your content is planned, considered and of value to your audience. Over time you will win hearts and minds but this has to start with building confidence, trust and loyalty, and it must differentiate you by focussing on what makes you special and unique.
5. Join the dots and invest in social marketing
Try not to run social content, an e-marketing campaign and a blog in isolation. Joining the dots is more effective. For example, post a blog on that hair extensions transformation, create a social post that links to the blog and run an e-marketing campaign featuring your client and their journey to amazing hair. This multi-channel approach is more effective and has more purpose. And remember, investing in some social marketing will amplify this to a targeted audience and reach far more interested people than an organic post. Social media algorithms actively suppress your reach potential and advertising is far less expensive than traditional marketing methods. It pays to invest a little and, in this case, a little goes a long way!
We hope you found this bog of interest. Please let us know.
Need help?
If you need help on your social and digital media journey, why not contact us? We’ve been partnering businesses big and small for over 20 years and offer consultancy services as well as providing a full agancy service to manage your social and digital media communications for you. Contact us for a FREE no-obligation discover call or meeting or complete and submit the form below.