8 out of 10 businesses use Social Media to grow, with 3 out of 5 saying they have earned new customers thanks to their use.
At the same time, with 46% of users saying they have searched for a Brand at Social Media before making a purchase, we understand the dynamics they hide.
We are, however, at a time when new social networks are constantly emerging, which in several cases have several differences and unique characteristics. Choosing the right Social Media to promote your Brand and your business, the content you upload to each of them, the Brand Voice to use, and many other factors play a crucial role in whether you can make effective use of the opportunities they offer.
The biggest mistake that many Brands make when they start their presence in the Social Media world is to create an account from all Social Media, without even informing half of them. The answer, "Let's be smart," is probably one of the most classical we hear when we come in contact with Brands who are looking for meaningful ways to grow through Social Media. Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Creating an account for your Brand just "to exist" is a move that will not just benefit you, but it can also have negative effects on your image.
Every time you create a profile for your company in a Social Media, you automatically ask your prospective customers to "connect" with you through it. You give them a promise to provide them with interesting content about your industry, informing them about your Brand news and, above all, how it will be an open channel of communication and service for what they need. You may hear the word promise, but ask yourself ... why a user Like or Follow to your Brand account if he / she is not going to receive useful content for him, or if he / she can not get immediate answers to issues which concern him / her about your company's products and services?
Unfortunately, there are dozens of Brands cases that have created accounts in various Social Media, have attracted a small (?) Number of users, and because they have not responded much, they have literally left their fate. The biggest pity, however, is that in many of them, as long as Brand did not take control of his account, some - even few - tried to communicate for information or service, without receiving any response. As our friends say Americans "That's bad business".
Make sure to create and maintain accounts, only in Social Media where you can spend time and create content!
Finding content for Social Media, which will be interesting and useful for our followers, is not an easy task. We have all been found from time to time in the difficult position of "tweaking" our head to think of what to move up for the established post of the day / week. But before you are in a hurry to share the new antics of Ancient Memes or your favorite GIFack to fill the gap, get your hand off the mouse, sit back in your chair and ask yourself the following questions:
Does this post match with the way our company basically contacts? Follow Brand Voice? Does it seem like someone stole the account codes and posted something completely irrelevant?
Who is the audience that follows us? Is there a case of a portion of them being misunderstood or annoyed by our posting? Do we know from somewhere how our audience will respond positively to this?
OK! Let us suppose it was a great success. What exactly does it serve? Was there any specific goal we wanted to achieve?
The difficulty of finding content is something that can happen again. Is this the right way to deal with each time the mind crashes?
And here you may ask yourself "Yes, it sounds reasonable, but what is the solution?". The solution, therefore, lies in organizing and planning. Bad Lies, No Organized Brand does not wait at the last moment to upload content to Social Media (or anywhere else).
So set up a specific day of the week, where you will devote a good time to brainstorm and record ideas. Then select the ones you think are the best, prepare the post and schedule them to appear at the day and time you want. For Social Media that does not provide inherent programming capability, select a tool or simply remind your calendar. Be sure to schedule hangouts of at least a week or more depending on your Brand's item.
Important Note: We are not against GIF and Memes! We really love them! But it suffices to relate to the Brand, its style and its objectives.
Managing our customers, especially in our social media posts, where everything is public, can literally launch or destroy our Brand!
The truth is that clients can sometimes become extremely demanding or even aggressive, to a point offensive. But that does not mean that we should respond to their own style even if we are 100% sure that we are fair.
First of all, we must not forget that other users can not know for sure who is telling the truth, who is fair and unfair. If the logic tells you that through an answer with excellent arguments, you will convince other users that you are right and will do so damage control, unfortunately we will be sorry for you. It almost never catches! We would not even put the word almost to be honest, but we will be upright in our next proposal:
The only way to make critical crisis management and therefore damage control is to kindly suggest a solution to the issue on a personal level outside of Social Media. Example: "Dear [user], we are very sorry for the problem you have encountered and we are at your disposal to resolve it. Please contact us by email [your email] or your [phone] phone to resolve the issue immediately. "
If you think this post can lead to a negative posting chain, you can very well "Hide" that post. This way the user will see the post normally but only yourself and you. In any case, we do not delete the post unless it contains content against Facebook's rules (insults, obscene photos, third party ad, etc.), because the user can come back with a new even more aggressive post and then lose completely the "game".
But why? After we fill like hearts!
We will answer it with a nice example that has just come to mind and then we will suggest something more profitable than the contests:
Suppose you have a store where you sell women's bags. So you decide to start the contest. You publish it to all of your Social Media accounts, share and start participating. What are the errors?
First of all, you should know that under Facebook (and most Social Media) regulations, you are prohibited from requesting participation through Likes, Shares, Mentions. It is also forbidden to post a contest without having created a page with the terms and conditions on personal data. If a user (or even a competitor?) Reports, you may even experience deleting or disabling your page. You may have seen many brands run such competitions, but that does not mean it is legal or correct. They simply risk and from a crook they may end up losing all the effort they have made to build their community.
Second, you'll collect a bunch of likes from bogus accounts that have created users equal to bidding. They will never become your real customers.
Third, you are releasing your product or service. In essence, it's like telling them that your benefits are not worth a contest and are not comparable to the popular tablet (or any other gift unrelated to your brand).
Fourthly, you will gather a lot of likes from people who are not even the public that you are targeting as a brand. People who are not interested and may never be interested in what you offer. A young participant in your contest is almost unlikely to be interested in the women's bags and the logic "yes, but can (!) Get a gift bag to his girlfriend" is far behind. It also leads us to the next (fifth) conclusion:
Your benefit is not measurable. Social Media provides unique tools for targeting and measuring the result. Competitions are not among them. So you can not know if the contest you posted brought you a result (sales, customers, etc.), how many results did you bring, what revenue it brought to you and what exactly did you win with this competition.
For the end we have left the most important: The more unrelated to your subject Followers and Fans you have, the less actual prospective customers will see your future post. Wait, what?
The all-inclusive Social Media algorithm is selective and does not show up on all your posts. You will have noticed that while you have for example 10,000 Likes on Facebook, in fact a post is seen by 500, 800 or 1000 people. In the best case you will achieve Reach about 20% of them. Adding unrelated to your Subject Followers, you automatically reduce your appeal to potential customers. So while you could see your new post, Eleni, who is a potential customer, might actually not show up to her at all, but show up on Babis or even worse on a fake account that looked like equal to the competition.
Proposal:
So instead of spending your money to promote the product of another company, you can create a well-thought out strategy for an advertising campaign. With the € 400-500 you would spend on a controversially competitive bidding, you can get a dozen sales with a well-targeted campaign that can bring you immediate financial benefit, with clear metrics, and without negatively impacting the community you've built with so much trouble in your favorite social network!
Every social network has its own purpose and identity. At the same time, in each of these, users communicate differently or visit it for different reasons. For example, Facebook will see a user to share his views, experiences, and read those of his friends. At Instagram on the other hand, you'll go in to see basically pictures and perhaps video too. Here the text is of secondary importance. He can also see Instagram Stories that give a quick picture of the everyday little moments of friends and brands he follows.
So, to get the most performance, you'll need to customize your content each time depending on the philosophy of the social network.
On Facebook you can write a nice text and lead the user to an article you wrote in the Blog of your website.
At Instagram, on the other hand, you will post a photo that matches your Brand's identity and may relate to a beautiful moment from your workplace or a quote. However, it may also refer to an article you have written, but it is quite different how you approach your audience and the content you will use.
Whatever choice you make, always remember that you have to move on to a clear plan and a thought-out strategy!
"Put on the table" (or on your computer screen) all your possible choices and look at them one by one. Clear what is consistent with your brand identity and which ones do not. Which can really help you achieve your goals more effectively and what they can become part of your communication with customers.
