Smarter Marketing Blog

Getting Lost in the Digital World of Marketing but Staying Real

digital-world-wifi-zone

As a business owner, do you remember the first time you set up a social media account? It was probably a personal one where you exchanged jokes, ideas and pictures with friends and family.

As you grew more familiar with various platforms, you decided to start using social media for your business. Let’s face it everybody was talking about the digital world of marketing and how it enabled the measurement of marketing ROI. So why not?

Then it happened! You were consumed by the digital world and its trappings. As you started to read more and more blogs, they told you how to search for communities, build engagement figures and analyse authenticity scores, you got lost in the traffic (no pun intended).

Yep – managing your online presence became much more immersive all of a sudden. Everybody was caught up focusing on the tools and the numbers. We were all beginning to forget about people – the very people we wanted as customers.

Are you still operating in the real world or have you left us?

How do you know when you’ve become too immersed in the digital world? – score yourself out of 10, on the following scenarios:

  1. You unfollow your friends because they don’t re-post you or follow back
  2. You discuss your various online reputation scores when out socialising
  3. You curate recommendations, but don’t bother with them yourself
  4. You have been annoyed that your LinkedIn connection count stops at 500
  5. You don’t sell anything on social media because that’s not what it’s for
  6. You spend more time on redesigning your profiles than you do on advertising
  7. You spend a lot of time convincing people that they’ll miss the boat without digital
  8. You can quote most of your Google Analytic stats
  9. You love checking out new apps / tools / latest channels – and use them once
  10. You write posts about being immersed in the digital world (whoops)

How many are you guilty of? I have definitely been guilty of 5 of them in the past! However, in the last 8 months or so, we have reduced the number of digital channels we use and aligned the remaining ones with a specific function to reflect the ‘why’ of our business.

For example, we use twitter to keep abreast of all things marketing and share tips and timesavers with followers that may find them useful. Most of the curation is automated, but the sharing and follow-back is still a human decision.

You will notice that after 3 years on twitter, we still have a relatively low follower count but that is on purpose. Helping people (particularly SMEs), we believe, reflects the O’C&K values and builds our reputation. In other words, we want to be real to our clients and prospects. We have learnt that you can only be real if you are relevant, be it online or offline.

You can only be real for customers if you are relevant to them

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Entering the digital world is not the only marketing solution for every situation.

Sometimes when we’re networking at SME meet-ups, people don’t always see us as being real, especially when we start talking about an offline promotional mix (one of the four Ps – remember them?). Quite often people’s eyes become glazed over until we mention SEO, social media, content marketing, link building or growth hacking.

Of course, we have no problem with specialists per say, we use a lot of them ourselves. However, we have encountered many digital marketing gurus that don’t necessarily have a background (education or experience) in traditional marketing and communication. Their only solution is a digital one. Sometimes I just wonder if they are providing the best solution for a client, who might need more comprehensive, marketing communications advice. The ‘why in’ and not just the ‘how of’, the digital world.

Some of the same specialists argue that ‘traditional advertising is dead’, ‘inbound marketing is the only future’ or ‘social media is the only way to engage people’. Well, here’s our opinion on that – marketing hasn’t changed that much, mainly because people haven’t changed that much and the function of marketing in the future won’t change much either.

The agency (or guru) that does not provide you with a customised strategy, linked to your business objectives and supported by a range of marketing tactics – is probably just trying to sell you something. Depending on the business objective, product, brand or industry, different elements of the promotional mix will apply.

The real relationship is between marketing, communications and promotion.

Allow me to elaborate by way of background. One way of looking at marketing communications is through the prism of relationships. In marketing, the focus is on customer relations and in communications, the focus is on influencer relations, media relations, community relations and government relations.

Bear with me just a little longer – of the 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion) – promotion comprises Direct marketing; Personal selling; Sales promotion; Advertising and Publicity. In the digital world, these elements of promotion don’t change.

It’s just the tools and channels that are available right now, allow us to engage with people in a more relevant way. The challenge remains to choose which promotional tools to use, that will build the various relationships.

When using a mix of tools to engage an identified audience, professional marketing communications will ensure efficient and consistent messaging across all audiences and all channels. All that remains is to allocate different weights to each part of the promotional mix, based on business objectives.

In the digital world, marketing is still doing the same, traditional promotional activities – online.
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Ask yourself, can our audience be best reached offline or online (or a little bit of both)? Based on your answer, you can then start to decide which promotional elements to use to engage them. To finish off this segment of the post, here are some examples of combined online and offline promotional activity.

  • Direct marketing: producing brochures / online newsletters to engage prospects directly
  • Advertising: creating PPC and AdWords campaigns to support offline ads
  • Personal selling: designing presentations, webinars and podcasts
  • Sales promotion: creating coupons, landing pages, lead magnets
  • Publicity: blogging and writing guest articles or capturing a publicity stunt on video

Tips and Timesavers

As a small business owner, you wear multiple hats, some of which are a better fit than others. It’s not unusual for business owners to feel uncomfortable with marketing. The growth of digital marketing has definitely added complexity and import, but also power to small business marketing.

Succeeding in the digital world means providing content that your audience wants, where and when they want it. Here are some tips in relation to content creation and its distribution.

Content creation addresses your messaging and the best way to communicate it:

  • Blog post
  • Video
  • Email
  • Audio
  • Whitepaper
  • Infographic
  • Presentation

Content distribution determines how you are going to reach your target audience:

  • Newsletter
  • RSS subscribers
  • Social networks
  • Email campaigns
  • Community groups
  • Forums / offline meet-ups
  • Live streaming / Podcasts
  • Print / promotional items
  • Workshops

Conclusion

There are many powerful tools and channels for communicating with people and building your business. Sticking to online or offline only, however, isn’t going to get the job done. Whether it’s traditional offline marketing or the use of digital, you need to do each well and ensure you’re using them both in your promotional mix.

Marketing is a type of communication – communication is one person talking to another

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers. Jim – O’C&K

 

 

7 Good Reasons Why Your Business Needs Social Media Marketing.

social media marketing

Constantly, we are reminded that social media marketing is all about time management. We would argue that managing your business’s online presence is all about time management, but would agree that social media management is a large part of that time suck.

That being said, when done properly social media marketing can be very lucrative for your business. It can also be a little ‘fun’ as you have the opportunity of engaging with new people, most of the time. Before it can be lucrative or fun, however, it is imperative that you decide what you want it to achieve and how you plan to manage your activity.

As long as your proposed social media marketing is linked to an overall online strategy and more importantly, your business objectives – you’re good to go. Of course, it would be great if you had the time to manage the individual relationships yourself. More than likely, though, as a small business owner you just won’t have the time.

Having decided to pursue using social media, good housekeeping would be to avail of one of the many tools out there. In particular those that allow you to schedule posts. Admittedly, these can take a while to discover what days / times your audience prefer. Eventually, though it will make your content more relevant. You can always outsource the role but be sure to be mindful of who you use. See here for tips from a previous post.

If you go it alone, do your best to integrate social media marketing into your regular workday. Even 30 uninterrupted minutes a day would be fine. Assign a particular time for sharing relevant information. You can also tell your brand story and like / favour / save items posted by those you follow.

Don’t forget that your blog posts etc. should be optimised for search engines, as well as your website, to enhance positive search results.

In general, your social media activity should not be a campaign to sell your product / service but it can be used to boost your business’s visibility and reputation.

Social media won’t achieve direct sales for your business, but it will boost visibility and reputation.

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Put a little more thought into why you want to use social media marketing.

We’ve mentioned this already above, but it cannot be stressed enough – you must have an idea of what you want to achieve when starting to use social media. It might be for brand exposure, as a customer service platform, as an informational channel, or to drive website traffic etc.

Thereafter, you have to decide what platforms / networking sites you are going to use. The bottom line is that you work on channels that will return the most for your efforts.

Using social media is also a good way of delivering on your brand promise, i.e. to reiterate your ‘purpose’ to your audience so they know what to expect when they engage with you.

Social media marketing can also be an opportunity to humanise your brand. Although, we firmly believe that social media is just that – social, it is definitely a way for businesses to show how friendly / casual they can be (or not). Being friendly does not mean being intrusive, but does mean sharing other people’s content.

Another advantage for marketing activity is that there is a huge momentum change on social media towards being a visual experience. Capitalise on this by including loads of pictures / images / videos with your posts. This can be particularly useful for marketers who can use infographics and how-to videos etc. and thereby provide relevant value to an audience.

Putting your passion and personality behind your social media marketing will encourage interaction with your audience.

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People have a natural tendency to tell and share stories. Therefore, almost any social media platform that facilitates engagement will be popular. Of course, new ones will appear continuously, but all indicators are that the growth of social media is unstoppable. Surely it is a no brainer that every business should be taking advantage of the opportunity.

As participation grows, it is becoming harder to be heard on social media.

One result of the increased usage of social media by individuals and businesses is that it is most definitely more difficult to be heard, especially if you’re a business start-up.

We have been active on twitter, for instance, since we started up in 2013 and the scene has definitely changed. From our experience, here are some tips in relation to increasing your chances of being heard online.

  • You really must have a professional profile photo and bio. Use keywords, hashtags and links to your website.
  • You have to commit to being active such as consistently following people and posting / sharing their content.
  • Connect with people in your industry that you may not know.
  • Meet the people you connect with online – offline. Attend group gatherings – here are some tips on networking from our last blog post.
  • Be an active listener and build thought leadership within a narrow community.
  • Use the tools available to you, to join the conversation.

Tips and Timesavers.

We were asked at a networking get-together recently to give some reasons why a business could not survive without social media marketing. Here are seven reasons we offered in reply:

  1. More and more of your customers are hanging out (searching) online.
  2. Traditional marketing methods are becoming less effective (but still useful when required)
  3. Your customers expect a customised experience by interacting with real people.
  4. Building a community of loyal ambassadors is easier online.
  5. Managing your social media marketing can differentiate you from competitors.
  6. Even the ‘big’ corporates are using it – notice the CTAs for social media engagement on traditional TV / Radio advertisements.
  7. It is much easier to measure and to receive feedback than the traditional methods of surveys and polls etc.

Conclusion.

In the greater scheme of things, smaller businesses using social media marketing is still relatively new. For organisations about to embark on the journey, it would be wise to plan it like any other marketing activity i.e. set goals and a timeline.

This plan would typically include who will manage it, how it will look and how much time will be spent on it. When set-up and linked to your other ‘owned’ media, you should be as active as possible.

Bear in mind that social media marketing is NOT an alternative, cheap form of advertising. It is a tool to progress business goals which should be tracked and measured.

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers. Jim – O’C&K

Why Breaking These 6 Rules Could Improve the Digital Influence on Your Business.

digital-influence

Recently, we downloaded the 2015 report on the Irish Digital Consumer, published by Shane O’Leary. It contains many excellent insights into the state of online activity in Ireland.

Then, last Thursday, we attended an informative morning event organised by Meltwater, to discuss digital influence. One of the speakers was Adrian Weckler (Technology editor of both The Irish Independent and The Sunday Independent), who opened our minds with regard to global technology trends, and in particular, about social media channels.

Here is Adrian’s article that I read in an issue of www.independent.ie titled: “Your business guide to what sites are working on the social scene”, which will give you a feel for his presentation.

All of the above gave us food for thought about the digital influence on a business. In particular, we wondered whether businesses realise how much their buyer’s journey has been radically changed, due to technology. We believe that it is because of this changing environment, that us marketers, and indeed all businesses, must grasp the new realities and align appropriate strategies to them.

Irish Digital Report Extract O'C&K

When you think of it – digital is a very disruptive influence.

The thing is, not only has digital disrupted entire industries but it has transformed the way that people buy things. One of the biggest changes is that the ‘purchase journey’ is not linear anymore. It’s not linear because we (the customer) are inundated with information helping us to make our choices.

Even if we feel we have done enough research – due to being ‘connected’ all the time, we keep on discovering more information that might influence our purchase decision. The challenge for businesses nowadays is to acknowledge that discovery can happen at any time or place.

As you can imagine in such an environment, businesses relying on outbound marketing only, will not survive the competition. The old adage of ‘spraying and praying’ comes to mind, once more.

One solution is inbound marketing which can lead the customer to the information that they seek and that you provide for them. And that’s where digital influence comes into play. It’s not just about campaigns anymore – it’s about engagement with and involvement where, your prospects are looking for information – usually online.

It’s not just about campaigns anymore – it’s about engagement with and involvement where, your prospects are looking for inform­ation.

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As alluded to in our last article, here, the end goal for a business cannot be the short-term gain of a ‘purchase’ anymore. Because of digital influence on connectivity, the satisfied (or not) purchaser will share their experience through a myriad of channels with friends, family, colleagues and of course, strangers. These prospects may convert at some time in the future.

You could almost say that decision making has become crowd-sourced. Therefore, businesses need to lose their sales-focused communication and learn how to be part of the buyer’s conversation – wherever that may be.

The demands on the modern marketer’s role have also been influenced by digital. Now they need to nail down web analytics, SEO, display and search ads, social and mobile as well as physical brand touch-points.

In addition, new marketing technology will be required so good negotiation skills will be required to get the CEO and finance people on board.

Reading Shane’s report, mentioned above, and listening to Adrian Weckler, businesses should be in no doubt where they stand. There is a big gulf between where we are now and where the personalised, relevant and consistent experience that customers expect is.

There is a big gulf between where we are now and where the person­alised­, relevant and consistent experience that customers expect is.

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Digital shouldn’t be a marketing box that you ‘tick’.

Despite all the warnings and threats, you read and hear about, however, there is absolutely no point in embracing digital, just because everybody else is. But in saying that, when you do, it should be stressed that there is a difference between attending a conference / training session / reading a book and undertaking social media for yourself, and learning from your mistakes.

Can we just say that a lot of social media theory sounds great (and looks great when it works) but like everything else – success is not that simple. Digital shouldn’t be a box that you tick.

Just like any marketing activity, your digital visibility should be based on business objectives. You may require external assistance to align suitable channels to target audiences, but we don’t believe that you should hand over your online presence to a ‘guru’.

Do you need a ‘specialist’ to know all the rules and guidelines?

Yes, there is etiquette, and a specialist will provide you with case studies and statistics for almost everything online. But remember – you are unique and your business is different. You just need to be aware of where digital can influence the achievement of your business objectives.

Of course, you should not dismiss the notion of hiring a marketing specialist to assist you. If you do, here are some questions to ask them about their own social media activity before signing them up:

  • Which channels were most successful for you in your own business – key metrics?
  • How do you determine which type of content to distribute in each channel?
  • Which tools do you use to analyse and identify business opportunities?
  • What tactics do you use for boosting engagement in different channels?

What these questions will help you with is to find out about the experts. Like, have they learned the ‘rules’ of social media from books rather than practice and if they have a marketing background.

What’s our advice? Do what works best for you and if you don’t know what that is, then, get external help from experienced operators. Oh, and if you decide to go it alone, here is a good social media checklist we happened upon recently, from www.thewholegraingroup.com

To harness the power of social media, you need to behave socially by engaging your customers.
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Tips and Timesavers.

Social media is dynamic in nature and that’s not just the platforms and features. The people that use social media are dynamic also. Therefore, your social media strategy should be dynamic.

Sticking with a social media strategy that you devised many years ago might not be a great idea. Times change and so do the so-called rules. Here are six ‘rules’ that you might consider ignoring or even breaking:

  1. – Don’t post pictures of food – ‘you are what you publish’ is a strapline from a curation tool we use online called www.scoop.it, (what we like is the sentiment of the line). Whatever business you are in – post about that and it doesn’t matter what that is. Pets, food, nails, hats, sport, health, anything. That’s what your target audience wants – so ignore the begrudgers.
  2. – Stick rigidly to a plan – there is no way that the plan you developed 3 years ago is still relevant. Are you staying with Google+? Are you on Snapchat, Tumbler, WhatsApp – are your customers? It is a good idea to constantly evaluate current platforms, tools, tactics and content sources.
  3. – Be on all channels available – gone are the days where a business had to be present on many digital channels to manage its reputation. It is far more important to use channels that link your customers and your business objectives. Not all channels are equal in the eyes of your customers.
  4. – Post online as much as you can – please do not play the vanity numbers game. The best way to figure out when and how frequently to post is to monitor the engagement metrics. When and what are people liking, clicking, sharing and commenting on? Give people what they need when they show they need it. ~You don’t have to stick to what works for somebody else.
  5. – Write the newer tools / channels off – a look at Shane’s report above will very quickly outline that not all social media channels are new toys for teens. Also, monitor what your competitors are doing online – the bottom line is, if you can engage your prospects / customers in a particular channel (cool or not) – do it.
  6. – Don’t repeat the same post – but the reality is that you have to really. With the decline in organic reach, you need to get as much value from your hard work as possible. For instance when this blog is published, we will post tweets (with different descriptions) say 4 times on day 1, 3 times the next day, twice the third day and then automate it weekly for a period. But be careful – each channel is different. On LinkedIn – we will only post an extract of this blog on the day it’s published.

Conclusion.

We can’t guarantee it but if you break some of the rules above you might start to realise the influence that digital has on your business. Earlier, we warned you about employing social media gurus and suggested some questions to determine their suitability. Now we’ll finish off by giving you four phrases from a client’s view, that lead us to believe that they are not aware of digital influence:

  • “We’re not too worried about the content element, you can look after that”.
  • “We need to be on social media because we’ve noticed that our competitors are”.
  • “Social media isn’t measurable so we don’t spend too much on it”.
  • “Why change, we’ve always done it this way and it has been successful so far”.

If any of you is thinking along these lines – contact us immediately 🙂

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

 

For Website Credibility, it Needs to Succeed on Many Levels. When Did You Last Check?

website credibility O'C&K

9 questions to consider when designing or reviewing your website.

Currently, there is a deluge of articles relating to Google’s forthcoming requirement that, for your business to rank on mobile search, it is necessary that your website is mobile-friendly. We will be undertaking that change on behalf of a client, shortly and in preparing to do so, it made me reflect on website credibility in general, and how far I’ve personally come in the last two years.

Of course starting off, we all imagine that our site will be the ‘go to’ site in our industry and jump into building our award-winning offering. After all don’t we just need to embed our business video, publish a white paper and have a chat room to attract our ‘target’ audience? What helped me two years ago were the 9 questions (see tips below), a web developer asked me when I was on the baby slopes of digital visibility.

After we launched our site, I devoured numerous blogs/articles on digital marketing which had me spending my time trying to ‘outthink’ the spiders. In order to battle our way to the top of the search page (SERP), we were filling up our pages with plug-ins and keywords. I’m slowly learning that the ‘user’ is the focus and in this regard, our site will always be work-in-progress.

Here are some of the questions I still ask myself about maintaining a relevant and credible online presence. Does any of them strike a chord with you?

  • If an audience engages our service, should we not deal directly with them instead of pushing them to our website?
  • Aren’t all pages, landing pages? Does anyone need a homepage?
  • Shouldn’t high ‘bounce rates’ be a good thing? If somebody quickly gets what they want from our site, it has delivered on their expectation. (Also, the statistic that almost 40% of visitors won’t wait longer than 3 seconds for a page to launch surely tells us something)
  • Shouldn’t a website do just three things – tell people who you are, how you can help them and facilitate a purchase / CTA if required.

The answer to these thoughts could fill an eBook entirely, but suffice to say that they are always in the back of my mind when reviewing our online visibility. I wanted to share them with you.

Your website should do 3 things – say who you are, how you can help and facilitate a purchase if required.
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Having website credibility is a must.

Needless to say, just by having traffic on a website does not mean your business is an overnight success. Obviously traffic does not equal sales, especially as Google algorithm updates keep changing the goalposts. If visitors believe what they read on your site and it’s relevant to what they want – they are going to reward you with engagement. The visitor/customer just wants information, education or entertainment so we need to deliver on this, and not spend our time trying to game the system. Semantic search is here and not too soon in our opinion.

The visitor/customer just wants to be informed, educated or entertained so we need to deliver on this and not spend our time trying to game the system. Semantic search is here and not too soon in our opinion.

Think about it – there are so many excellent tools out there now that allow us to create, curate and distribute relevant content for people. The danger is that sometimes the website we are driving them towards doesn’t live up to their expectations when they get there. And I repeat,  this is usually down to relevancy and credibility.

Here is a marvellous Slideshare presentation from Bruce Kasanoff, which lists 31 specific elements of website credibility. Bruce contends that for your site to be credible, it needs to succeed on six levels:

  • Look and Feel
  • Who stands behind your promises
  • Who believes in you
  • Why should I care
  • How do I (your prospect) take the next step
  • Don’t ignore the absolute basics

Maintaining your website credibility.

Hand on heart – until I started up our business two years ago, from a punter’s point of view, I wouldn’t have given website design a second thought. Now that I am exposed to the dynamism of the digital world, I realise that staying up to date with developments is the norm rather than the rule.

Whereas the levels mentioned above are essential when reviewing/ designing your site, here are four things that I believe must be constantly checked if you want to maintain website credibility. The first and foremost thing is having your site, mobile device friendly. The world is going mobile (e.g. wearables etc.), but there has been enough written on this topic already, so I’m not going to duplicate the effort

Even if it is device responsive – you need to constantly check on your own smartphone/tablet to ensure that links etc. are working. Credibility goes out the window if somebody clicks a link and finds out that it doesn’t work. The next thing is that you really should have social sharing buttons on your pages. Even if you don’t bother with social sites yourself (?), it’s a wasted opportunity for brand awareness and annoying for the reader if they want to share with others.

The one that really cracks me up is not keeping a blog (or social site timelines displayed on your website), fresh and up to date. I mean, if you have a tab for a company blog and it hasn’t been updated in a year, what does that say, about your efficiency. Use it or lose it, I say.

Site speed is the last one. I’ve recently become much more fussy about this. I have less patience (could be old age, of course), with pages that take longer than usual to open. There are too many tools available for increasing your site speed to allow site owners away with this one.

Staying up to date with website developments is the norm rather than the rule.
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Tips and Timesavers.

I remember meeting our own web designer for the first time. I was nervous because, as I said earlier, I had never been exposed to the ‘other side’ of a website. In fairness, he asked me some very relevant questions to guide me, which I am going to repeat here as tips that will save you time and effort:

  1. Do you know what you want the site to do for you
  2. Who will be the hosting account (do you have an existing domain name)
  3. What is your budget (what does it include)
  4. Have you any examples of other sites that you like
  5. Will it be device responsive (now an imperative)
  6. Have you brand principles that need following (logo, colours etc.)
  7. Who will be updating the website on an ongoing basis
  8. Will there be a web shop element required
  9. Will you need ongoing webmaster support

Once you have agreed on how to move forward, based on answers to the above questions, the creative designer in you gets a chance to shine. Consider such things as colour, font, imagery but most of all usability and simplicity.

Have you checked if your website is mobile friendly recently? Put your company website address into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test here, and see if you’re really ready for the world.

Good Luck.

  “We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email, when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

Why wouldn’t you use social media in your marketing strategy?

social media like

13 tips for your social media campaign.

Recently I was discussing the enhancement of a brand’s visibility, with a client, and suggested that it would be appropriate for him to incorporate an element of social media as part of a marketing strategy.

The client intimated that he would prefer sticking with traditional media because he understood how it worked. It appeared that he distrusted the “new-fangled” social media and thought it would be a waste of time and his money.

He proffered some points to back up his preference. “Millions of people still watched TV as their source of information and entertainment, and a large proportion of them still listened to the radio”, he said. He asked that with that large reach, why wouldn’t he stick with the channels he had been using for years.

He continued to say that “people trusted TV / radio / press because items were researched and presented by professionals. As a result, people felt that they could rely on the information published”. Now he did agree that more and more people were using social media, but he thought that this was purely for connecting with family and friends and that not many people were using it as a reference for business.

He was on a roll at this stage, so he mentioned that most people can remember the great advertisements produced (a la Madmen), but not so any from social media. He sensed blood so he went for my jugular – from a business perspective, he said, “there’s no proof that social media sells, it can only be a short-lived message anyway and a lot of the time it’s just as intrusive as any other channel”.

Being online is not just a nice-to-have.

I agreed that traditional and social media were two different platforms but warned that they were becoming more mutually dependent every year. People (customers) increasingly wanted brands to be available to them wherever and whenever they wanted. Therefore, an online presence is a must-have, not a nice-to-have. The power has shifted to the consumer, I suggested, and if both platforms were incorporated into a marketing strategy it would provide the potential for better business results. Some of the benefits I highlighted were that using social media was less expensive (but not free), much more interactive, like word-of-mouth on steroids and can be specifically targeted. These are unique opportunities that traditional media cannot offer.

I did admit to him that, unfortunately, many businesses are persuaded to invest way too many resources in social media (sometimes a case of the shiny new tool syndrome). But, when used in a focused way, I continued, it makes marketing activity much more measurable and accountable.

Incorporating social media into marketing can offer unique opportunities.
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You’ll be glad to know that we agreed to proceed with the setting up of a social media strategy (on a trial basis), and here are some of the questions we asked ourselves.

Get it right by asking yourself some pertinent questions.

Sometimes businesses use social media in their marketing because their competitors are doing so, which usually leads to unrealistic expectations and eventual disenchantment. The only way to decide whether social media fits into your marketing strategy is to ask yourself some pertinent questions. Such as:

  • Is your target audience using social media?
  • Have you established goals for your social media activity?
  • Have you the resources?
  • Can you define your social media strategy?
  • How are you going to measure the activity?
Answer these pertinent questions, to see if you are ready for social media
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An overriding point to note here is that social media activity is a sub-set of marketing activity which, in itself, is a sub-set of business strategy. In this regard, a simple way of deciding on social media usage would be to ask yourself, a) looking back – would use social media in a campaign have improved the result and b) have we existing campaigns that social media could add value. Either way, here are some solutions to the questions posed above.

  • Target audience – ask your top customers, survey the rest, scope out competitors
  • Goal setting – improve brand recognition, grow brand loyalty / engagement, sales, thought leadership
  • Resources – review people, time, budget, buy-in, training, relevant content
  • Strategy – drive website traffic, distribution for blogs / newsletters, interaction with customers
  • Measurement – SEO, lead generation, engagement, conversion, sentiment, cost savings, sales

If you can answer all these questions in conjunction with your colleagues (and superiors), and use it where appropriate within an overall strategy, then maybe your social media activity won’t be a waste of valuable resources, as suggested by my client above. It’s about building trust. If customers engage your brand at many touch-points of their choosing, they are more than likely to favour you over brands they haven’t encountered, and, therefore, can’t trust.

Tips and Timesavers.

If you have decided to integrate social media into your marketing strategy – here are 13 tips and timesavers that may be of assistance.

  1. Write down a social media plan (what, why and how to optimise it)
  2. Seek out influencers from your industry (follow and engage with them and give back)
  3. Prefer content quality over quantity (should be educational, engaging or entertaining)
  4. Use original imagery (stock photos are not recommended and always check the license)
  5. Establish reader personas (solve their problems – here’s a fun tool I discovered this week)
  6. Add an insight if sharing other’s content (build thought authority)
  7. Establish a budget (management, tools, images, videos etc.)
  8. Repurpose existing content (or use customer generated content)
  9. Keep your eye out for new tools (often channels or tools are upgraded or replaced)
  10. Dabble in PPC (social advertising can be capped at a cost that suits your budget)
  11. Develop an editorial calendar (good for principles, not rigidity)
  12. Encourage buy-in (from all staff not just the C-Suite)
  13. Profiles should adhere to brand style-guides (bios, messages, images. tone, positioning)

 Conclusion.

The world of social media is constantly changing. It is because of this change that some unfounded, anecdotal evidence or myths spread about social media experiences. Let’s debunk some of them – people are reading your posts but they may not engage with them. Your blog post will not reveal trade secrets to the competitors and online activity will not constantly expose you to comments that might damage your reputation (unless you deserve it). One of my favourites is – more is better (vanity metrics) which is crazy stuff and finally, social media is free, which believe me, it is not.

“We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

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