The 5 Most Important Things to Know about Social Media Marketing

In our prior two publications, we have emphasized the importance of developing a social media marketing game plan. People are shifting their leisure time from reading newspapers and watching television to engaging with their personal social network of friends on mobile phone or computer. To best reach new prospective customers today, inevitably you must slowly tread into the world of social marketing. Technology enables profound social change. Organizations must adapt to these changes or risk extinction over the long run.

A meaningful Social Media Marking commitment should include:

Establishing a social media presence on major platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Baidu, LinkedIn and dozens of others.
Creating compelling, visual, interesting content and advertorials on a steady and consistent basis.
Developing a feedback loop which draws prospective customers into a dialog. This could include contests, surveys or just attracting comments on your posted content.

Decreasing the distance between your organization and your customers (current and potential) is key. Your company is likely to be discovered on Social Media through content and links shared by trusted sources within a person’s personal network. Your social media posts must be pointed, targeted and motivational.

“To effectively reach audiences and customers, marketers need to be much more intentional about the content they post. There must be a clear benefit that motivates them to follow, share, and engage. “[1]

5 Important things about Social Media Marketing

#1. Good Social Media Marketing is a Long Game

Good Social Marketing doesn’t normally happen overnight. Betting on a special piece of content ”going viral” is not a well-grounded strategy. Your organization must be committed and find the time and the resources to execute a realistic strategy. If you have a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter and Instagram feed…. Those all require new, interesting and compelling contributions daily or weekly to drive social engagement. Social posts are timely. The more reach and relevance your posts have, the more likely you are to engage new prospective customers. Social Media campaigns can be focused and limited in duration. For instance, you may introduce a contest that drives towards a new product introduction or seasonal sale. But your social media marketing strategy may well involve lots of targeted campaigns one after the other.

#2. Social Marketing is Visual

Show rather than tell is the mantra for Social Media Marketing. Today, most social networking has shifted over to a person’s smartphone. Given the smallness of the screen, visual content – a photograph or a video – rises above the written words. Moreover, as more and more content shifts to be extremely visual, the bar rises for your competition to at minimum be on parity with the other noise across a social network.

A picture unto itself won’t accomplish much. The content must address a person’s wants or needs in some way. Just splashing your brand or presence on Social Media without establishing some relevance and trust is not effective. Ideally you can provide content to a personal social network by someone in that circle of friends that relates, is trusted, and whose opinion or endorsement is influential.

#3. Social endorsement trumps expensive social advertising by a long shot.

There is a staggering amount of “visual noise” flowing across social networks. Facebook alone is expected to collect over $40 billion in advertising revenue in 2017 from their social network and other associated properties such as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. There are tens of thousands of companies large and small, global and local that are developing high-quality ad campaigns to targeted audiences on Facebook.

From a brand and social awareness perspective, these impressions that flash in front of people’s eyes on a mobile phone or computer screen clearly add long-term value. They work best for companies with a well-developed marketing budget that is shifting from more traditional media to social media.

What we have observed, however, is that a social post by happy customers with a branded image is exponentially more impactful at getting an audience to engage, notice, and act than a paid advertisement. Happy customers become brand ambassadors and influencers that shape the future action of their social network of friends. The average Facebook user has 338 friends [2], so their post is social, relevant, impactful, and hits a broad new potential audience.

#4. Not all social media posts are remotely equal

It’s great when your customers have a positive experience and take a selfie and share that on their social network with their friends. We used the term “Self-Post” to describe these. There is no doubt they help with your brand and social awareness as well as brand endorsement and one never should discourage these. But by facilitating Smart-Posts, the impact difference is proven and exponential in magnitude. Social Flash Media’s products focus on helping companies shift in this direction as the core of their Social Media Marketing strategy. The new Social Flash MOBILE product offering is our powerful entry point.

Smart-posts carried out by your company are dramatically more powerful than a self-post done by your customers. You are assuring the image quality, the content and the messaging are consistent with your branding. The photos themselves are branded and when clicked on, they link the interested person right back to a targeted online location such as your website or Facebook page or an upcoming schedule of events or sales.

Moreover, with smart-posts you can analytically review the social impact of the posts – how many digital engagements occurred (the likes, shares or comments), how many clicks over to your website, and what the actual underlying demographics of those engaged are.

#5. Managing your cost and time commitments to Social Media is mandatory

As mentioned earlier, Social Media Marketing is a long-game that requires persistence and commitment. The potential for it to consume staggering amounts of time and money should not be underestimated. Lots of fresh, relevant, engaging content must be produced relentlessly and propagated to the social networks. Just managing all the content itself can be a full-time job.

You will have to make tough choices as to how best to spend your money and time to get the most cost-effective impact. New technology is being introduced every day to help address some of these challenges.
As with most things in life, select a key partner to help you with your Social Media Marketing challenges, not just a product or technology. Do your homework, research companies and find companies that are passionate about making sure you succeed. That is the most important step in managing your time and cost commitment to Social Media marketing.

[1] Nicole Ames, Successful Social Media Marketers Focus on Customer Needs

[2] Steven Mazie, Big Think