6 minute read
Creating a social media strategy
Create a social media
he rapid growth of social media over the last decade has seen organisations having to respond and react quickly, ensuring that they have a presence on this constantly evolving channel. T
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This quick adoption of social media has often led to organisation’s ‘doing’ social media because they feel they have to, rather than ensuring it has a purpose and delivers impact.
As marketers we are often quizzed by the management team to demonstrate the value of social media and despite social media being able to provide a wealth of data, many struggle to answer the questions. But how can we measure impact if we don’t know what we are hoping our social media will achieve in the first place?
To resolve this, it’s important to take a strategic approach by asking a few fundamental questions. The first is to ask is what do you want your social media to achieve? There are many ways social media can help to drive business forward, including: stakeholder satisfaction, customer service, information dissemination, research and development, changing perceptions, raising awareness and much more. It is important to set the business goals which social media will support, e.g. raise brand awareness or grow market share; with no business plan you’ll find it difficult to understand if your social media strategy is working.
Since the dawn of time, marketing has been about putting the customer at the heart of everything that we do, and this is more important now than ever before given that social media provides a two-way channel for customers to shape and influence conversations and other customers. In order to satisfy their needs appropriately we need to ensure we know everything about them for example wow old are they, who influences them, what are they interested in and who currently has their attention?
When we have developed a clear understanding of our target audience, we are then able to identify the appropriate channels and messages to reach them. The first step is to identify the people who will be delivering your social media and then ensure you have a process for delivering content, and importantly responding to reactions from potential customers.
Create a social media strategy
Ken O’Callaghan Marketing Manager
The platforms can only be identified once you’ve confirmed your target audience. More often than not, organisations are desperate for an Instagram account (because they feel everyone else has one). However 85% of Instagram followers are below 24, and unless this is your target audience, it isn’t the right platform for your organisation. The platforms you use need to reflect your objectives and also the audience you are trying to reach.
Choosing the channel to reach your audience is important; it might include you as your brand ambassador, video, news pieces or great visuals. The more targeted you are with your audience the easier it is going to be to deliver your message. It is also important to take into consideration the time of day your audience will be accessing social media, if you are posting content at midday but your audience is checking social media after 10pm before they go to bed, your messages will be lost.
This means that it is key to research the habits and behaviours of your audience. However, I’m afraid there is no ‘holy grail’. It will take time and testing to identify the winning tactics for engaging your audience. Evaluation needs to take place on a constant basis. Daily evaluation needs to take into account content performance; does your post answer the ‘So what’ question? Is your social media content likeable, shareable and relevant to your audience? If content isn’t engaging should we repeat the post or rephrase it? Longer-term evaluation is also important in demonstrating impact; we need to be able to monitor progress over time via a clearly defined set of metrics, which reflect our objectives.
For example, if your business objective is to increase market share, the marketing objective is to raise brand awareness, then the social media objective is to increase reach. The metric would be to measure social media reach each month to see if this is being increased and that your efforts are paying off.
Ultimately, social media is a cheap and easily available medium which has resulted in businesses ‘doing’ social media but with little understanding of the impact. The secret is to communicate to the right customer, with the right message, on the right platform and in the right format. In doing so, you will see your social media strategy deliver results.
Call: 03300 552 651 Email: support@hlpartnership.co.uk 37
Weather warning
ith the bad weather that’s been battering the UK over the past few months, it’s always a good idea to encourage your clients to save their insurer’s claims number and their policy reference to their phone because you never know when you might need it. W
For Paymentshield customers you can find this information as part of their welcome pack or on the claims section of their policyholder website.
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Weather warning
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