Social media can be a powerful way for a business to reach customers and consumers through increasing the awareness of a brand and creating an online community. However, the success of social media for a business relies on a good understanding of the target market, social media trends, and the careful selection of social media platforms. It also requires a strong connection to the overall strategy and objectives of a business.
By the end of this topic, you will understand:
- The alignment of social media plans with an organisation’s strategic objectives
- The importance of sourcing and analysing information about a target market
- The need to identify and analyse emerging trends in the use of social media platforms
- Key differences between social media platforms
- The benefits of integrating social media with an organisation’s systems and procedures
- The types of opportunities on social media that can maximise business exposure
- Strategies to build brand awareness and an online community
With 18 million active social media users in Australia in 2020 and 4.14 billion active social media users worldwide, using social media to promote and market a business, brand or product means having access to existing and potential customers far and wide.
Watch this introduction to social media from Business Victoria. It outlines how social media channels can be used to strategically build a brand and business:
An Organisation’s Objectives
A successful social media presence requires more than posting only when a product goes on sale or a new service is available. Just like how a business or organisation has a strategic plan for the goals they set out to achieve, engagement with social media should also form part of an overall social media strategy.
A social media strategy is a plan for achieving an organisation’s objectives on social media. It includes the platforms, or channels, to engage with as well as the plan to monitor and analyse the effectiveness of the strategy. The first step to developing a social media strategy is to consider the organisation’s strategic objectives.
For a social media strategy to succeed, it must be aligned with the organisation’s overall business goals. For example, an organisation’s strategic objectives could include:
- Increase awareness of the organisation
- Generate new leads
- Increase sales
- Improve customer service
- Launch a new product or service
- Build a brand
- Engage with industry partners
Strong alignment of a social media strategy with business priorities and the overall strategic direction will enable the development of a successful strategy that delivers real business results.
Social Media Objectives
After identifying how social media could make a positive impact to an organisation’s strategic direction, the goals, objectives and priorities need to be determined.
Good goals are SMART:
The goal should be clear and simple.
The goal needs a way to be monitored and analysed so needs to have at least one measurable factor in order to do this.
The goal should align with your long-term objectives.
An adequate time frame should be defined
For example, the strategic goals of a restaurant may be to increase brand awareness over three months. In this scenario, the social media SMART goal could be:
- Specific: Increase brand awareness of customers within 10 km of the restaurant through the restaurant’s Instagram account.
- Measurable: Increase the number of followers by 20% and reach an average of 1000 people per post.
- Achievable: Develop an action plan detailing what will be posted and when and increase the Instagram campaign budget by $500.
- Relevant: By increasing brand awareness and the number of followers, the restaurant will see an increase in customers.
- Time-bound: Three-month time frame.
Social Media Role
Below you will find a table with the role of social media as it relates to the following very important aspects:
| Aspect | What is the role of social media? |
|---|---|
| Consumer engagement and feedback | Social media can assist the organisation to engage consumers via posts and they are a great tool for gathering feedback through interactions and reviews. |
| Generating sales | Social media can assist with generating sales as a business can promote its services or products to a wide audience very quickly. Businesses can also promote their products or services specifically to the audience they feel is more likely to purchase them using targeted ads. |
| Promotions and marketing | Social media have become the main tool used by most business for promotions and marketing due to their effectiveness. Almost every business is using social media to promote their services or products and customers tend to check the social media of a company before they complete a purchase. |
| Branding | Social media is a great tool for a business to promote and establish its brand. Customers like to deal with companies that have a “face” a social media can assist your business to achieve this. |
Social Media Techniques
It is crucial for every organisation to be able to use techniques to achieve the following:
- customer engagement
- brand awareness
- brand advocacy
- increased sales
- improved reach
| Aspect | Techniques |
|---|---|
| Customer engagement |
|
| Brand awareness |
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| Brand advocacy |
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| Increased sales |
|
| Improved reach |
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Before creating an account on every social media platform, consider the target market. The target market are the customers, clients, or consumers that a business is targeted towards. This is generally defined by the business and the marketing department. Selecting the most appropriate social media platform for your target market will help you achieve a bigger reach to your audience. For example, a business-to-business (B2B) company that sells products and services to other businesses will likely have a strong presence on LinkedIn, and law firms are unlikely to engage with their target market through TikTok, whereas a real estate agent may engage with their target market through Facebook and Instagram.
When considering an organisation’s target market, think about the following factors:
The demographic of the target market needs to be established and properly understood along with common past purchases, interests and priorities.
Most consumers make purchasing decisions with the input of other people, including those who promote, use and review products or services.
It is vital to determine which social media platforms the target market uses the most. Look at similar organisations in the industry. What platforms does their target market use? Which platforms have the highest number of or most active followers?
Individuals in the target market will often display shared behaviours, and knowing what these behaviours are is invaluable for knowing how to engage with the market effectively. Do people in the target market tend to lurk on social media? Or do they tend to share and create social media content? What are they incentivised by?
When constructing a social media strategy, it is important to be aware of emerging trends in the use of social media platforms. Remember that, as platforms develop and new platforms emerge, trends can change and evolve rapidly.
For example, in 2019, Instagram announced they were hiding the number of ‘likes’ on each post from all users except for the account-holder of that post. This caused many social media influencers and marketers to be concerned about social media engagement with their posts; if their target market were unable to see other ‘likes’ on the post, they may be less likely to ‘like’ the post themselves.
By keeping abreast of changes and trends, you will be able to adjust your social media strategy and metrics as required.
In 2020, Sprout Social released the Sprout Social Index, where they surveyed over 1000 social marketers’ goals and challenges. The surveys were conducted in February 2019. They then cross-referenced the responses with over 1000 consumer responses to understand how those consumers want their preferred brands to interact with them through social media.
They found that:
- 70% of social marketers say their biggest goal is to increase brand awareness
- 44% of consumers reported an increase in their use of social media platforms in the 6 months leading up to the survey date of February 2019
- 59% of social marketers use social media to support their sales and generate leads
- 87% of consumers who follow a brand on social media say they are likely to visit the brand's website or app
Further Reading:
Website The Sprout Social website has some interesting and useful information on social media trends:
With many different social media platforms available, it is important to select the social media platforms that the target market is most active on. Social media platforms vary in the way you promote a business. For example, Instagram is orientated towards photos, whereas Twitter is more text-based and operates with a 280-character limit for posts.
By considering the products or services a business offers, along with its target market’s preferred platform, a social media strategy is more likely to be successful. For example, a restaurant would be more likely to choose Instagram and Facebook to showcase photos of their dishes over a platform such as Twitter.
With a myriad of social media platforms available, it is important to review and compare the platforms that best meet an organisation’s objectives and the needs of its target market.
It is important to identify opportunities for the chosen social media platform to integrate with existing systems and procedures in an organisation. A business may engage with a number of social media platforms, and monitoring each platform can be time-consuming and costly. In this instance, there may be an opportunity to integrate the platforms with existing systems in a business.
Many organisations use customer relationship management (CRM) systems, such as Salesforce, to improve business relationships. These systems allow an organisation to manage customer data, stay connected to customers and analyse interactions with past, current and potential customers. CRMs were traditionally used for email marketing. However, they are becoming more and more focused on integration with social media channels, which means that organisations can streamline their social media activity and manage their posts and consumer interactions through a single platform. If a CRM is integrated with existing systems, it is important to also review the procedures of the business and adjust where required.
For example, if a current procedure is to log into each social media platform and review comments and likes for each post and a CRM is introduced, the procedure will need to be adjusted to suit the new functionality available to the business
When used effectively, social media platforms are a great way to increase a business’ exposure. These are some of the most effective ways to maximise business exposure:
Brand Stories
Effective storytelling will help develop an emotional connection between a brand and its target audience. The purpose of a brand story is not to advertise a product or promotion; it is to evoke emotion in the target audience. A brand story sets a business apart from others, creates loyal customers and should connect deeply with the values of the organisation. What is said and how it is said are also important factors when crafting a brand’s story. Consider Apple and the emotional connection it has created with billions of people across the world.
The following video of Steve Jobs introducing the first iPhone in 2007 shows the power that great storytelling can have and its ability to create billions of loyal followers:
Social Proof
Arguably one of the most effective ways of promoting a product or service is through user-generated content. Consumers trust the opinions of other people more than they trust the marketing efforts of the brand itself. People are more likely to buy a product or service if other people share their experiences with the product.
Case Study
In 2017, BMW created the hashtag #BMWRepost and invited customers to share stories and photos on Instagram, which were then reposted on the official BMW Instagram site. This has helped BMW create an Instagram feed that is authentic and compels consumers to make a purchase that they believe will improve the quality of their lifestyle.
For more ideas on how to harness the power and benefits of user-generated content, visit the following link:
The Right Timing
The most successful social media posts ensure that the right post is shared at the right time. This can be difficult when managing multiple social media platforms. However, most platforms have the ability to schedule posts at times when the target market is the most active. For example, a business that markets a product or service to busy professionals may have more success advertising and sharing content in the middle of a working week, rather than a Friday evening when their target market has finished their work week.
Depending on the organisation and industry, there will be many opportunities to build brand awareness and an online community. A strong brand story will contribute to building awareness of a brand.
This YouTube campaign from Dove was not created to advertise products. Instead, the videos were designed to spread the positive message of their brand through a hashtag that brought a community of online users together.
There are many other ways to build brand awareness:
Native ads are built into the surrounding content of a website or social media platform. In essence, the credibility of the ad is provided by the host site, and these ads help to reach people who are already engaging with content that is relevant to the advertisement. Native ads can be seen on many different websites. They are often found on news websites such as www.news.com.au
Facebook and Instagram both allow businesses to launch brand awareness campaigns using video and carousel ads. Audiences are targeted by categories such as age, location, gender and interests.
Consumers trust the recommendations of influencers more than traditional advertisements. Organisations will often exchange free products or services in exchange for positive reviews and use of their product (e.g. a fashion company partnering with an influencer might give the influencer free clothes in exchange for the influencer posting photos of them posing in their clothing range).
Content such as infographics that is industry-specific and highly relevant but not related directly to the products and services of a business can have the potential to be shared thousands of times. This helps the logo and brand of a business reach a wide audience.
User Generated Content
Role
User Generated content is content created by customers or fans and it is used to promote the company. It could come from photos, videos, other social media posts, reviews, articles etc.
Benefits
- Consumers tend to trust other consumers more than the marketers
- When a company promotes user generated content is putting the consumer in the centre of its operations and this has a positive effect on other consumers
- User generared content is original and authentic. It has not been created to cover imperfections of the brand, the product or the service.
- It is cost-effective as users are creating the content and therefore, it reduces the amount that would have been invested in creating expensive advertising campaigns
Brand Community
An online brand community can be a powerful ally for building the brand of a business. Online communities of loyal followers and customers can help to sell more products, test new products and promote the business.
Consider the brand community surrounding Apple. The Apple Support Community offers peer-to-peer technical support and a place for fans to share their experiences with Apple products. The community offers a space for feedback, self-service support and knowledge, and it encourages user-generated content and constructive participation.
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