- October 7, 2015
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Focus on These 5 Areas to Sharpen Social Media Marketing
After years of encouragement from this blog and others, it looks as if social media marketing has finally gone mainstream. Ninety-six percent of marketers polled in an extensive 2015 Social Media Examiner survey said that they’re actively using the medium, with 92% agreeing that social was “important” to their business.
As with many integrated marketing tactics, the secret to long-term social media success is adapting your execution to an ever-evolving platform. So whether you’re just dipping your toe in the social media pool or have been actively paddling about, focusing on five key areas, condensed from a recent Adweek.com article, could help you achieve the results you’re after, and avoid what we delicately call the social media worst practices.
Content
Content is a perennial target of social and search platform scrutiny, especially on Facebook. First and foremost, Adweek says, it’s best to avoid packing your pages with promotions, lest your organic reach suffer scathing FB smack down. If you want to sell stuff, Facebook contends, part with some money and take out some ads.
Capturing
This one might also be called ‘controlling visitors’ attention,’ because your social media efforts will be more successful if you can effectively engage them (via social) and direct them back to other media or content that you own or control, such as a website, online community or opt-in list.
Conversation
The most effective conversations are those in which both parties feel understood and validated. Social media exchanges are no different. People want to engage with (and be engaged by) their favorite brands in the same manner they desire engagement from celebrities or athletes. Quality conversations, built over time, create trust and Users’ desire to share, talk about, even advocate your company to others. So one of the keys to excelling at this “C” is to acknowledge and reach out to loyal followers who are actively engaged with your brand.
Community
People join online communities to feel special, included and simpatico with likeminded others. When your company encourages and facilitates community building, they benefit – and so do you, because you’ve given the faithful a home and a platform for sharing their passion, excitement and experiences.
Conversion
Using social media to grow a community of friends, advocates and enthusiasts is great. But it shouldn’t be the endgame. Investing all that time and energy simply to increase likes, follower counts and visibility may not be worth the effort unless it also leads to sales, email captures, downloads or other strategic conversions. There’s a place in your mix for paid social media and its singular purpose is to convert.