Last year was an interesting year for social media. Every so often, a new social media platform emerges to capture our attention or become part of our daily lives. Today, social media has become an essential tool for any marketing strategy.
1. Building Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness is a key objective of many businesses. But, before you can create a favourable impression and motivate customers to buy, you must first make them aware of your brand and what it represents.There are various ways in which companies can create awareness of their brand and enhance brand visibility. The power of social media has had a big influence on this, thus becoming an integral part of a company’s strategic business decision. The more people that are aware and begin to recognise your brand, the stronger reputation your brand starts to build. This ultimately leads to creating brand equity, the value of your brand in the mind of the consumer.
2. Interact with existing & potential customers
Interacting with existing and potential customers is not always an easy task. Existing or potential customers may not want to be associated with your brand on a social media platform, perhaps they do not favour social media, or perhaps due to time restraints are unable to engage with your brand on an online platform. A lack of engagement from customers may also arise as they are not aware that your brand exists on a social media platform. It is therefore essential businesses find engaging and unique ways to interact with customers and potential customers, to increase brand awareness, recognition and brand visibility.
3. Engagement
Engaging with customers can often be a tricky task via a social media platform. Content and relevancy plays an important role in keeping customers and potential customers engaged. It is important that content produced is relevant to your target audience and should have a purpose that your audience can relate to. Often, a strong customer engagement strategy will enhance brand growth and customer loyalty. Below are 5 key ways to engage your customers:
1) Offer customers real value – content that can be genuinely useful.
2) Build a community – bring customers together in online social-sharing communities.
3) Inspire people – people value useful information and convenience.
4. Provide entertainment value – an opportunity for engagement marketing.
5) Keep the conversation going – constant dialogue with customers.
4. Choosing an appropriate platform
There are now a variety of social media platforms available which a company can utilise for their social media presence. With so many different options out there, how do you choose the best social media platform for your business? The trick is deciding how you can best ‘story tell’ on a platform where your target audience spends a large amount of their time. Below are a list of a few social media platforms you can use for your organisation, some may be of more relevance that others depending on your business:
– Twitter
– Facebook
– Instagram
– Youtube
– Google +
– Snapchat
– Linked In
– Pinterest
5. Measure referrals from your social media to sales
How do you determine whether or not your social media campaign was successful? Are you spending a large amount of your time on your social media efforts only to see minimal return on your investment? For some organisations such as e-commerce businesses, you can calculate the cost of the campaign vs the revenue brought in. This is a measurable way to determine return on investment. For other businesses, it may take some creative thinking to measure your results. Tracking statistics could include likes, website hits, page views, forwards, news subscribers and sign-up forms completed. Three ways in which you can improve your ROI:
1) Behavioural targeting – send out specifically targeted content.
2) Social Media – use your social media channels to build up your subscriber base.
3) Deliverability rate – keep your content free of any “spammy” words and phrases.
At Datacentreplus we practice what we preach and are often busy with events, newsletters and are frequently active on various social media platforms. If you would like further exposure for your company we would be happy to have a call with you.
