Social media has had an impact on businesses over the past years. Social platforms, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have transformed the way people communicate. In the process, they have also changed the way businesses interact with their audiences.
Social media’s influence goes beyond customer engagement. Business departments, such as product development, human resources, market research and sales are launching successful social media marketing campaigns. Although the internet is rich with success stories, plenty of social media challenges still exist.
Social media management matters for businesses or franchises, but it can be a tricky road to cross. If a campaign doesn’t meet your expectations, it’s easy to assume that you did something wrong. But that’s how social media works. So before you get discouraged and give up, consider these common social media challenges and how you can solve them.
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Creating a Social Media Strategy
Creating any plan is daunting in itself, especially if it concerns the success of your business. Many questions need great answers: who do you target? How do you come up with eye-catching ads? Is there any ROI?
Instead of overwhelming yourself, start with knowing what a social media strategy is. A social media strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do, as well as your goals for the business. To start, create a list of objectives and goals. The more specific you are, the better you’ll be at implementation. Your objectives should be aligned with your business goals and marketing strategy.
As much as possible, keep them concise and make sure they are attainable. Your social media strategy exists to guide your actions, as well as measure your success.
Turning Employees Into Brand Advocates
When building an online presence, focus on driving organic reach and generating awareness. To be successful in this field, you have to pull out the big guns, aka your employees. They are valuable and largely untapped assets. After all, who can better represent your brand than the people who work in it?
A 2013 study reported that 41 percentof their respondents believed the employees are the most credible source of information regarding a business. So, your team must share the right kind of information about your business to help educate potential customers.
One of the best ways to transform your employees into brand advocates is to make it easy for them. For instance, build an employee advocacy platform that makes it easier for employees to share engaging content with their social networks. It’s a great way to streamline content and messages that matter to your brand.
Measuring Social Media ROI
Social media ROI is the fruit of a successful social media marketing strategy. The tricky thing about social media ROI, however, is seeing the value of your posts. It’s harder to realize the value of your Instagram posts or Tweets compared to ad clicks.
Social media ROI is based on your business’s specific goals, so how you proceed with social media marketing is different from another business’s strategy. Before you start measuring your ROI, you’ll need clear goals, which is why a strategy matters. Do you have a strategy with quantifiable goals in place?
Identifying the Best Platform to Use
There are many social media platforms out there. Should you be on all of them? Or is it better to choose a certain number of platforms to focus on?
Start by identifying the social networks your target audiences spend most of their time on. Familiarize yourself with demographics for all of your social networks and see if your target audience is part of the numbers. Don’t just know where they are; find out where they are active.
Also, just because you have hundreds of followers, it doesn’t mean that you have THE audience that you need. Consider the fake and/or abandoned accounts. Find out where your target audience is actively participating or contributing. If you’re not reaching out to the right people, you won’t meet your business goals.
Once you’ve established yourself on a platform, use a social media analytics tool to monitor audience demographics and engagement with your account.
Having a Humanistic Relationship with Your Audience
To increase brand loyalty, focus on establishing a humanistic and rewarding relationship with your audience. One of the best ways you can do so is through storytelling. If you want your customers to stick with your brand for the long run, give them a good reason to do so. Through storytelling, you can introduce your brand’s core values, giving your audience something relatable that they can share to their friends and loved ones.
Social media is a powerful tool. Once you harness it well, it will serve you well. It may take a while, but once you see results, your business will thank you for your patience.