It’s now a known fact that purchasing decisions are influenced by social media.
If the first era of social was audience building and engagement, the current era is focused on commerce and personalization. All major platforms have heavily invested in their advertising solutions to lure marketers with the promise of improved and smarter targeting.
For example, through Facebook, marketers can:
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Manage audience data for custom audience targeting
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Create campaigns and ads
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Build custom dashboards and run analytics
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Manage campaign assets: pages, accounts etc.
Research shows that 60 percent of consumers will first visit your Facebook page before visiting your website. And 80 percent of those visitors are more inclined to buy if they find a credible Facebook page associated with your business.
Please Read part One: Why Your Brand Needs to Have a Social Media Strategy
There are subtle differences between the roles each social network plays in the purchase cycle. For example, Pinterest is a great place for people to find inspiration and works well as a visual product storyboard. Facebook is well suited to people looking to share content and find promotions. For example, 58 percent of consumers engage with a Facebook ad at least one time before spending money with a small business.
Without a clear strategy, how do you know what role these networks can and should play in your customers’ buying cycles? How do you know you’re not losing out on potential sales, or trying to sell to people who aren’t looking to be sold to?
The lack of a clear strategy hands the advantage to competitors.
It’s uncommon to find a business without a social presence, and increasingly, companies are developing clear social strategies aligned with business goals.
A marketer with a strategy has a framework through which to plan, prioritize, execute measure and optimize. This typically will lead to better results because the activity has direction, even if the direction needs to evolve and change as the marketer learns from real data.
If you invest in a social presence without a clear strategy, you won’t know whether or not your campaigns are successful. For example, if you simply post content to appear active, how do you know that content is contributing to the business positively? What if it’s actually putting people off your brand?
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!