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Social media presents a brand new way to engage with your customers, but it's not as easy as it seems.
Social media marketing has revolutionized marketing by creating an environment of engagement and conversation - a place where brands no longer just talk at their customers, but actually treat them with respect. But how exactly this revolution can be harnessed is still largely misunderstood; it's not easy or simple to win real brand loyalty in social media. Like most magic wands, the social media wand - wave it to woo customers everywhere - has yet to be found. Arguably, it takes even more time, better strategy, and more work to succeed in social media than in any other form of online marketing.
Sound intimidating? It is, but it's worth it. The first step to being truly successful in social media is to clear your head of any delusional expectations. Below we discuss, despite its mystical reputation, five things social media just won't do.
Social Media Marketing Won't Be Free (or Cheap)
One of the most common things we hear is that social media is free. Well, if your strategy is to stay out of it completely, then yes, social media is free. Otherwise, social media is an investment, just like any other part of the marketing mix.
To be successful with social media, you need a concrete strategy - a strategy that proposes where, when, and how you will spark dialog with your audience. Like money, these strategies don't grow on trees; they're the result of in-depth research and creative brainstorming, both of which take time. Is your time free?
If you prefer to skip forethought and planning, and the impact they create, then sure, social media is cheap (not free). But after a few weeks, without any true friends, followers, or substantive posts, your social media profiles will be well on their way to the notorious social media graveyard.
This graveyard is crowded with lazy, incompetent marketers who thought "If I build it, they will come". It contains hundreds of thousands of forgotten blogs, lonely Twitter accounts, and fanless Facebook pages. The ones that do produce content tend to lean towards the mediocre and half-hearted: recycled press releases, articles, product updates and the like. Milestones and news aren't evil in and of themselves, but without a more diverse assortment of discussion items generated by both the brand and the users, a social media presence will fail.
Creating a strategy that fosters vibrant, organic discussions is a labor of love, foresight, and planning. However, implementing that strategy is also an ongoing commitment of time and effort (something we'll discuss more below). Even if a divine strategy falls from heaven onto your lap, someone is still going to be putting in hours here on earth to make it work.
Social Media Marketing Won't Be Easy
Once you have your strategy nailed down, which should at minimum take 50 hours, then it's time to start executing. While developing a strategy is no simple task, it's the day-to-day implementation for the weeks, months, and years to come that really makes the difference.
Like the time spent on strategy, the time spent posting to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media outlets can add up quickly. Two to three weekly posts on a thought leadership blog can easily take forty to sixty hours a month, and while Facebook or Twitter accounts range widely, it's a safe bet to allocate fifteen to twenty hours per month here as well.
But the challenge is more than just finding the time; you need frequency to keep the conversations going, but pairing consistent quality with that frequency is a strain for even the most talented marketers.
Take television shows for example - the waves of pop culture are formed by their coming and going. Jokes are born from their demise, and whole industries are devoted to discussing the latest fictional happenings on the tube. Among a number of other factors, a good television show relies on skilled directing, acting, and writing. When the quality of any of these slips - the plot becomes predictable or the acting too obvious - the show begins to lose traction. Likewise, the fight to keep your social media audience engaged is never over. Each day it starts anew, and your daily efforts will determine whether you maintain your audience's attention or get cut mid-season.
Social Media Marketing Won't Make a Bad Brand Good
Social media marketing is a tactic - period. It's an effective tactic, but it's not some magic brand-fixing, product-enhancing, miracle machine. If you have inferior products or services, it won't fix them. Frankly, it will make your problems even worse if approached incorrectly. While some brands may be in the nightmare situation of staring down websites and Facebook groups devoted to destroying their business, this problem is only exacerbated when a brand uses social media to pretend that everything is hunky-dory.
This is the big kicker for many companies. The reason they don't have real fans has little to do with the content they produce or the social strategy they've devised (other than that it's premature). The real reason is that their product or services provide very few reasons for anyone to care.
What's a brand to do in this situation? Obviously, commit to fixing the problems. The bad news is social media can't do that for you. The good news is once you've made the commitment to improvement, social media can play a part.
Take for example Comcast Cares. Comcast realized they had a problem (customer support) and they created a Twitter account devoted to the cause. The account doesn't promote the company in any way besides helping customers. There's no hype, PR stunts, or dodging the fact that Comcast has historically treated their customers poorly. There's just simple, honest help for the customers.
Another good example is Dominos' Pizza Turn Around. By working with focus groups the company found that their biggest problem was, in fact, their product. According to one customer, the pizza tasted like cardboard. While this may not seem like the ideal grounds for a social media campaign, it actually was. Dominos used this as an opportunity to admit their shortcomings and publicize the release of a new, not-cardboard-like pizza in the form of a YouTube documentary called the Pizza Turnaround. Instead of using social media to cover up their failures (a tactic that consumers can see straight through), Dominos used social media to transparently tackle the problem head on.
Remember, social media can't make a bad brand good. You have to create real change within your company first. But when you're ready for change, social media will be there to help you leverage it.
Social Media Marketing Won't Let You Turn Off Other Marketing Efforts
The proper marketing and advertising mix is unique to each organization. However, many times eager clients are ready to throw out the old and jump all in for social media marketing. It's important to remember that an end-all-be-all tactic to push your firm to the next level does not exist.
Even though we're an interactive marketing agency, we still believe in traditional offline marketing. Everything has its place, and like a good investment portfolio, striking the right balance is key. Moreover, your online campaigns should do more than just protect you from a disaster in one area. They should actually complement each other. New studies have demonstrated that social media, search engine optimization, and PPC advertising all work together to increase click through rates by maximizing shelf space in search results. It makes sense if you think about it - it's equivalent to shelf space at the grocery store. If you see Cheerios on display, in the front of the cereal aisle, and in the cereal section, the shelf-space effect not only gives you more opportunities to pick up a box, but the repetition sears the brand into your subconscious.
Social Media Marketing Won't Be Something You Regret
By this point you might be wondering what exactly social media can do. It can't fix your product problems or replace other marketing efforts. It won't be cheap. It won't be easy. So, what will it be?
Magic. Good magic, too. At least when you get it right - otherwise it might feel more like voodoo. It's magic that can strengthen the ties between you and your customers. It's magic that can make your brand a household name. It's marketing that can amplify your customer's voice when they speak for you.
If you've ever owned a brick-and-mortar store, you know how good it feels to have your customers walk in talking about how wonderful your store is. More importantly, you know how much it helps your business to operate in a way that generates that kind of loyalty. When you operate well in social media, whether you have a brick-and-mortar store or not, you generate the online equivalent of that experience.
Social media marketing won't be what many people expect, but it will be one of the most powerful marketing tactics that brands have in their arsenal for years to come. In the long run, social media won't be something you regret.
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Content Marketing