{"id":21352,"date":"2017-06-20T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T08:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fifteen-staging.fifteen.dev\/blog\/5-ways-to-maximise-social-media\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T14:05:16","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T13:05:16","slug":"5-ways-to-maximise-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fifteendesign.co.uk\/blog\/5-ways-to-maximise-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to Maximise Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, social media. Is it just a land of questionable memes, internet trolls and pictures of people\u2019s food which is almost definitely going cold and not being appreciated in its full, warm beauty? Well, some of it is, I can\u2019t deny that. However, there is also a gargantuan opportunity to reach new customers, engage with long-standing patrons of your business and grow your brand across a wide range of platforms, creatives and different locations. I\u2019ve outlined my top 5 tips below for getting the most out of social media:<\/p>\n

Identify your brand and your audience<\/h2>\n

So, before you get too excited and start posting away on every social network available, you\u2019ll need to decide what it is you\u2019re going to be posting about. There is a lot of noise out there on social channels so it\u2019s really important to decide what it is about your company that sets it apart from the competition. Ask yourself a few questions:<\/p>\n

What makes your brand different, exciting or engaging?<\/p>\n

What does your brand have to offer?<\/p>\n

Why are your customers (or potential customers) going to stop looking at pictures of cats on their Facebook feed and engage with your company?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also really important to decide on the tone of voice you\u2019ll adopt on social channels and how this fits into your overall marketing strategy. Social media, as with any other marketing channel you use, is an extension of your brand. So it\u2019s vital to ensure you have consistency across your website, social media and any other touchpoints a customer may have with you.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve decided on what<\/strong> you\u2019ll be talking about, you\u2019ll need to figure out who<\/strong> you\u2019ll be talking to.<\/p>\n

One of the best ways to do this is to build out customer personas based on the data you have about your current audience. Information such as age, gender, location, interests, devices and occupation are massively valuable when putting these personas together. Give your customer persona a name too and get everyone at the company to buy into it \u2013 if everyone knows that your messaging is more \u2018Margaret\u2019 than \u2018Melanie\u2019 for a particular campaign then you can have faith that everyone is on the same page and you\u2019ve got a consistent tone of voice across your marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

Audience data is readily available from a host of different platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and specialist customer data platforms such as Hitwise if you\u2019ve got some budget to put behind your research. You\u2019ll likely make a few tweaks to your personas over time as your audience grows and could end up with a variety of personas you look to target to suit your different business goals.<\/p>\n

Define a social content strategy<\/h2>\n

Copy and paste just won\u2019t work. Different platforms call for different content and will depend on the audience you\u2019re looking to target. For example, if you know that your \u2018Melanie\u2019 persona tends to consume more visual content you\u2019ll likely be looking to focus attention on platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest or YouTube rather than say, Twitter.<\/p>\n

Here at Fifteen, we advocate creating a \u2018Content Calendar\u2019 to map out your activity over different weeks or months to ensure you have a full picture on the type of activity you\u2019ll be running per platform. As well as giving you a holistic view of your activity, it\u2019s also a great way of ensuring that each different post or campaign is clearly linked back to your objectives \u2013 are you looking to raise awareness of your company, are you looking to focus on conversions or are you looking to use social media to provide service to your customers by way of answering questions and queries?<\/p>\n

Also, it\u2019s really important to understand the specifications for content on each platform \u2013 image sizes, video length, text restrictions etc \u2013 to ensure that when you\u2019re ready to launch a campaign, you have a full arsenal of assets at your disposal. And again, don\u2019t just copy and paste, think about how that content is consumed on each channel. Don\u2019t just shoehorn in all the elements you have on a landing page banner onto a much smaller image for social media or you\u2019ll begin to dilute your messaging.<\/p>\n

Monitor your activity (and your competitors)<\/h2>\n

Social media is definitely an \u2018always-on\u2019 channel so be prepared to speak to your customers on their schedule, or at least set their expectations on when you\u2019ll be available to respond to them. If you leave a query (or complaint for that matter) unanswered for a few hours you could be at risk of losing a potential new prospect or upsetting an existing customer.<\/p>\n

Monitoring your activity is also a great opportunity to identify brand advocates, influencers and those valuable customers who can provide insight into the kind of messaging that works for your audience. Nurturing these kinds of customers is pivotal to growing your online presence and ultimately, your business.<\/p>\n

Depending on the activity you\u2019re running, you may also need to monitor your activity to react to potential leads for your business. If you\u2019re focusing on conversion, you\u2019ll want to be keeping an eye on which type of messaging is working to drive people through to your website or increasing footfall to your stores and which messaging needs refining.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the odd crisis you may need to be on hand for\u2026<\/p>\n

\"twitter<\/p>\n

Get involved in the conversation<\/h2>\n

There are thousands of conversations happening on social media (some relevant, some\u2026 not so much) so our advice is to get involved where it\u2019s relevant for your business. Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are rife with hashtags which allow you to jump on hotly discussed topics and share some valuable insight.<\/p>\n

If you do take this approach, one thing to be very mindful of is how you can add value to that conversation. There are numerous examples of brands, and the general public for that matter, trying to jump on a hashtag without appreciating the context and falling hard on their face, which could make up a whole new blog post in itself (stay tuned for that one\u2026).<\/p>\n

You may find that with your industry there aren\u2019t many relevant conversations you can get involved in to raise awareness of your brand. If that\u2019s the case, start the conversation yourself! Going back to monitoring your activity, you can utilise those brand advocates to join in the conversation and get people talking about your industry, your brand and your expertise. It\u2019s also great practice to get everyone else at your company invested in your brand and to help support your activity on social media through their own profiles, whether it\u2019s liking your latest post, sharing content or shouting about the great things you\u2019re doing as a company.<\/p>\n

Darren Rowse (https:\/\/twitter.com\/problogger<\/a>) said it best:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want engagement, be engaging. Be conversational. Ask questions. Leave room for your audience to add their voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measure your results<\/h2>\n

I covered off digital marketing measurement<\/a> in my last blog post, but seeing as I love talking about measurement and reporting, I\u2019ll happily touch on it again.<\/p>\n

The key to measuring your results is to not be afraid of data \u2013 there\u2019s a whole load of it at your disposal when running digital campaigns and social media is no different. You\u2019ll most likely be using the same analytics platforms you would have familiarised yourself with when building out your audience personas such as Google Analytics and the insights you can get from each of the social networks you\u2019re running activity on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s massively important to keep track of what activity has worked in line with your business goals and it\u2019s equally as important to understand the activity that didn\u2019t <\/strong>work. There will be some valuable insights into the kind of messaging, creative and approach that doesn\u2019t quite resonate with your target audience, which will allow you to tweak and refine activity over time.<\/p>\n

Being able to tie your activity back to your business goals and KPI\u2019s is vital for driving a long-term social media strategy and maximising the impact of your activity.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in finding out more about how to maximise social media, check out our social media marketing<\/a> page or drop us a line today.s<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ah, social media. Is it just a land of questionable memes, internet trolls and pictures of people\u2019s food which is almost definitely going cold and not being appreciated in its full, warm beauty? Well, some of it is, I can\u2019t deny that. 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