Every startup worth its salt needs to engage with social media if it is to have any chance of success in an increasingly online world. However, running a good cross-platform social media campaign is a great deal more complicated than it sounds on paper. So here are 7 useful tips for mastering the fractious and fertile social media world and seeing success for your business.
Asset Management
Asset management is the practice of logically storing and making available all of the digital assets that a company needs to conduct successful public-facing work. It sounds like a simple task, but the more widespread a social network campaign is, the more complex it becomes. To prevent a disjointed cross-platform campaign, a business needs to ensure that it maintains a very strict style guide and asset use policy. This cannot be achieved without good asset management.
Because of the sheer amount of assets that businesses using multiple social media platforms have to manage, software that makes the process easier has become extremely popular. Digital Asset Management software – usually referred to as DAM – provides a central control panel from which marketing employees can access all of the themes, media types, and copy that they need to compose consistent material. If you are still feeling a little bit confused about the role asset management software can play in your social media marketing campaigns, then take a look at this deep dive.
Influencer Power
Influencers are an extremely important part of the social media marketing ecosystem. They are powerful mouthpieces that can speak directly to your target audience. Consumers trust influencers because they feel close to them, addressed by them, and interacted with by them on a personal level. This might explain why the influencer marketing industry is so vast. The influencer marketing industry is currently worth about 13.8 billion dollars. However, you do not have to drain your marketing budget to effectively use influencer marketing. Good market research is the key to affordable targeted influencer marketing campaigns on social media. Knowing the niche influencers that truly speak to your target audiences enables you to make shrewd investments in figures that genuinely influence your audience’s consumption habits.
Connectivity
Social media marketing can be fractious. You need to be aware of just where you want to take people who interact with your campaigns. Connectivity is key. Decide upon a central hub that all your social media posts link to. Ecommerce businesses typically use their shop as a central hub – only natural when the aim of their campaigns should be focused on getting people to buy products. Connect every post on every platform to your central hub.
Customer Service and Feedback Response
Social media is unique in marketing terms because it allows for a direct exchange between businesses and consumers. This is, however, a double-edged sword. If you fail to offer quick feedback on social media or refuse to address criticism posted on your social media pages, then you may find your business spiraling into a PR nightmare. The internet lends itself to reactions that expand out of control. Keep your business safe by actually addressing the concerns people express to you.
Consistent Posting
You have to plan for and stay on top of a schedule when working out how often to post on social media platforms. Each platform has a different algorithmic ‘sweet spot’ – the perfect quantity of regular posts that ensures they will be seen by all of your followers. This changes all the time. There are, however, some general rules of thumb. Facebook, for instance, rewards businesses that post two times in a day, each day but no more. However, you need to have over 10,000 followers for this algorithmic preferential treatment to come into effect. Confused? Pretty much everybody is. The trick is to keep your finger on the pulse regarding the ideal number of posts per day to make on each platform. Do not expect them to stay stagnant forever.
You should think about how often consumers will want to see your message on a more basic level. If you post too little, then your business will fade into the background. On the other hand, post too much, and you could see your social media pages hemorrhage followers and interaction as people become sick of constant marketing barrages.
Automation Tools
Keeping track of your social media campaigns can be remarkably difficult – especially if you are engaging in a multi-platform campaign. Social media automation tools typically provide a centralized control panel from which you can post and monitor all of your business’s social media accounts at the same time.
Stay On Brand
A consistent message is vital for building a successful brand and helping to drive natural word-of-mouth interest in your products and services. So even though you might be posting on several different social media platforms through several different staff members and aimed at several different territories, you need to make absolutely sure that you deliver a consistent brand identity through your messaging.
Consistency is key in all areas of marketing, but it is particularly pertinent when consumers can switch between multiple platforms. The key to consistency is strategy. Make sure to plan a cross-platform social media strategy well in advance and brief all marketing staff to the utmost of your ability. Discuss the limitations of each social media platform with your staff. Try to find a visual palette and verbal style that will translate across all platforms. Visual styles that work on Facebook, for instance, need to work just as well on TikTok and Twitter if you want to convey unified brand identity.
The use of asset management tools to centralize visual files and themes can also help to keep your message on brand. Likewise, careful attention should be paid to how sound influences the consistency of a message. Make sure all video posts contain music that conveys a similar feeling; otherwise your message might end up seeming intensely disjointed even if it has visual consistency.
