Social media marketing: what you need to know

Image: b2b

Social media refers to an on-line platforms that allow users to generate content, connect with “friends” and share what they produce. Content can be text, images, links to other sites, video and an incredible range of data. The key distinction is that the social media platforms don’t create their own content as a traditional media company (newspaper, movie or recording studio, book publisher) does.

Whereas traditional media is “one to many” broadcast, social media is about dialogue and interaction. Everyone is a publisher and is entitled to a voice.

When done well, social media can build very strong connections between brands and individuals; connections that those individuals may freely share with their own network if the content is compelling enough. When done poorly, social media users can become vicious, vindictive and incredibly prolific.

This introduction aims to help you get started understanding how to be a good social media citizen, avoid the most usual blunders and work out where to start and how to build. The biggest message is that you need to be in the game – start somewhere, try things, see what responses you get, learn, try again, repeat. Persistence is critical.

The most basic thing you need to know about social media is that the “social” part is really important. Social media users are mainly there to connect, interact, gather opinions and have fun. They generally tolerate brands intruding on all of this IF (and only if) those brands become like friends – or at least like valued advisors.

The implication for marketers is that you need to actually listen and engage with people, not constantly try to sell them something. If you can think of social media more as an awareness and attention tool (that should eventually bring people to your web site where a page might sell them something or collect their email address), then you can do very well. If you only want to “talk at” people, then use other marketing channels.

It is also useful to know some key concepts:

• Connecting – every social media platform lets you connect with other users. Some, like Facebook and LinkedIn, require a mutual connection, meaning you have to send a connection request and it has to be accepted. Others, like Twitter and Instagram, allow you to “follow” any user and allow any user to follow you. Think about the kinds of connections that will work best for you
• Being Yourself – every social network seeks to make sure that you are a real person and, in fact, are what you say you are. Most networks also let you set up an organisational presence (for example Google+ and Facebook Pages). It is very important to make sure that your personal profile reflects you and that you have a separate organisational presence if you are promoting an organisation. (Even if you are a celebrity or solo consultant, it is highly advisable to have a professional Page for your work that is separate from your personal profile.)
• Being found – most social networks now support so-called “hash-tags”. A hash-tag is a term with the # sign in front of it and can be searched both in search engines and within the social networks. So, #rocknroll will now return results on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and a range of other sites. Most networks show #tags that are “trending”, meaning they are popular at the moment, being talked about a lot. You can create your own #tags simply by typing them into your entry on most social networks
• Apps – some social networks let you create (or use existing) applications that extend their functionality. Many Facebook games and a number of LinkedIn business tools are examples of these apps. Just be aware that most of the platforms haven’t moved apps to their mobile versions yet, and the majority of activity is now done from mobiles, so you need to make sure that an app suites your audience.

Planning

As with any marketing activity, you need to do some planning before you dive into social media. If you put together a basic plan, then you will have some structure to your activities and will be able to tell if the time, resources and expenditure is worthwhile.

First of all you need to specify who your audience is (location, gender, age group, other factors) and work out how they like to interact. It is also useful to create some parameters around your “voice” – how do you sound when you write, speak or show images?

The next step is to work out what you want to measure. Measurement in social media generally falls into 3 categories:

• Reach – how many people does your content reach. Things to measure here are Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, YouTube video views. Reach in itself has almost no value, expect to show the potential audience you could engage with and encourage to take action
• Engagement – how much do people connect with and share your content. This is a proxy for how interesting or valuable your content is to your audience. You measure things like number of comments per post, number of re-tweets, number of shares or likes. A more highly engaged audience (as long as they are not engaged in hating you) is generally more inclined to take the time to read and share your stuff and to take the actions you ask them to.
• Action – what do people actually do that is important to you. Measure people visiting your web site, signing up for your email list, buying something. Ultimately, only action creates value.

  When you first set up your measures, there is little point is setting numerical goals. Rather, spend some time (a month, maybe 3) just tracking the measures and getting a base-line. See how reach, engagement and action change with different things you do. For example, do you get more shares when you ask for them? Do you get better engagement when you respond to comments in a constructive and open way? Do you get more action when you post a picture or a video? Does that change depending on the social network you are using?

  Once you have a good feel for your base-line and what kinds of things produce better responses from your particular audience, then you can set some goals around improving those measures and plan the actions that you think will achieve those improvements. Then implement the plan and track performance. Adjust as needed.

  Good Social Media Citizenship

  The best way to get positive results from your social media marketing, irrespective of which networks you use, is to be a good social media citizen. Here are some of the main things to keep in mind about being a good social media citizen:

• Engage – have conversations with people, ask and answer questions, give praise, apologize if you make a mistake. Remember that other people think their posts are important; if you comment on them, like them or share them, then you make those people feel important. Don’t make it all about you. Also, if someone comments on something you have posted, or on a comment of yours, you should generally respond. You would if you were talking to them face to face, so do it in social media.
• Be human – so many big companies try to sound “corporate” and it almost never works on social media. Don’t spin, don’t spout PR lines. Speak from the heart, speak your truth, show your passion. If you are not willing to be real, perhaps social media isn’t for you.
• Share – when you find great stuff that other people have done, tell everyone about it. Also, add some value to it by saying why you love it, what’s great about it or how you have used it.
• Be social – be polite and positive, even if others are not. In general, follow the “grandma rule”, which says that if you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandma, don’t say it in social media. It’s ok (in fact it’s great) to express your opinion – just make sure you flag it as an opinion. If someone is belligerent, don’t argue, be polite and state your case.
• Be aware of context – most problems businesses have in social media come from them not being aware of the context in which they post. Either they are not monitoring what people are saying and therefore not responding in a timely way when challenges arise or they are not paying attention, such as when Qantas put out a competition to post your favourite Qantas experience with the #tag #qantasluxury just as the airline grounded its fleet and stranded over 25,000 people around the world. Suffice to say, the response was not what the brand-protectors would have liked…

  What social media channels are right for you?

  There is a dazzling proliferation of social media channels. Working out which one(s) to use, however, is actually pretty simple. First of all, don’t try to do them all at once. Pick one, build a community, figure out how it works for your audience and hit some goals, then start another and another.

  It’s also a good idea to start with one of the major social networks in your market.

  To work out where to start, figure out where your audience hang out most and what kind of content you will mainly be sharing. This information takes a little bit of research, but in general you can search on all social media platforms, so see which ones have big groups of the kinds of people you want to reach. Also, different networks are more geared for different content, so there may be a natural home for your content.

  Each of the main networks could take a whole article (or book), but here is a very brief overview of each:

• Facebook is ubiquitous and supports all content types easily and is the biggest network with well over 1 billion users. Facebook’s scale is both a great strength (pretty much everyone uses it) and a potential draw-back (there is so much on Facebook that it’s hard to really stand out). There are no real restrictions on how large posts can be, so you can share a fair bit of information. Facebook pages also let you use apps, so you can add functionality like competitions, discount codes, even shopping carts relatively easily and at low cost. Facebook also has a growing advertising offering that lets you target your audience with great precision, so you can attract your best customers in a cost-effective way.
• Twitter is (mainly) text, although this is changing fast. Twitter is called a micro-blogging site because posts are limited to 140 characters. More than 70% of tweets contain links, so it can be a great way to get people back to your web site. It’s important to follow leaders in your space, poplar brands and people. Often they will follow you back and this gives you greater reach.
• Instagram and Pinterest are for photos. If you work with a visual arts medium, these networks can be very effective. Make sure to include #tags that will help people find your images.
• YouTube is only for video. These days very few people actually connect on YouTube and not many comment on videos there, but YouTube is great for search and it is easy to share YouTube videos on other platforms.
• LinkedIn is manly business content (images, text and video can be used).