You have a business and a brand to maintain. You’re aware that everyone and everything is now on social media for the world to see, experience and engage with, but you’ve never thought much about social media. You think it’s for kids to show off what they’re wearing or eating, or what they plan to do later.
But you have a business and a brand to maintain.
Even if you’re not actively participating and involved in social media, other businesses are, including your competitors and most likely a significant proportion of your customers. Failing to understand that this is where many people hold conversations means you’re not part of the discussion, and you can’t influence what happens. You’re losing out. Big time.
You need to get involved and you need a social media strategy.
A social media strategy defines how your organization will use social media to achieve its communications aims and tools it will use to achieve this. At a basic level it’s a simple statement of intent, outlining the goals and measurable objectives for using social media, and the target outcomes you want to achieve. It isn’t a detailed plan of action, but without a clear strategy, how do you prioritize the activities for a plan? Think strategy first, plan second.
If you don’t know what’s being said, how can you effectively manage your brand reputation online? And how can you ensure that your key messages are being heard by the people you most want to talk to?
The social climate on the web is still growing. Fast!
The latest research on social media usage shows that there are two key factors driving the social web according to a Global Web Index study:
- Mobile – people accessing the internet via mobile has increased by 60.3% just in the last three years.
- Older user adoption – on Twitter the 55-64 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic with a 79% growth rate; the fastest growing demographic on Facebook and Google+ is the 45-54 year age bracket.
Improved mobile connectivity globally has increased ‘on the go’ social activity, from catching up on friends’ updates to sharing content and watching video. As people spend more time on social media, consuming more content than ever before, you might think that the space is saturated so getting involved isn’t justifiable. Think again.
Creating a targeted social media strategy will help you focus on using relevant platforms to connect with existing and new customers and avoid simply adding to the noise.
We’ll discuss more next week in Part Two of our Social Media Strategy Series…
If you’re business needs a Social Media strategy or requires a third party social media management team, contact us today and let us put together a plan for your brand!