The terrain of social media management is ever changing. While brands are increasingly acknowledging the importance of a strong social presence, the strategy to effectively position brands hasn’t been an easy one to follow. The best strategy is to continue to evolve with social media. Included below is advice from Google’s Wildfire and Oracle’s Eloqua on the best practices to implement this year. We have included a final point from our own findings.
Eloqua’s 5 Truths
Oracle’s Eloqua described what they called 5 Social Media truths.
- In order to build loyalty with fans, a brand must be authentic. A brand must be engaged with their audience and create a dialogue.
- Fans want to feel like they’re part of something special. In order to activate these desires, you should develop e a list of our value propositions as they relate to your fans and followers. You should also prioritise your messaging.
- Everything is a story but let your customer tell your story instead. The example they gave was that of Honda and their #hondalovesyouback campaign. You can see the full story here.
- Don’t avoid tough fans because they can make your brand better. Negative reviews or comments can be something to learn from, not hideaway.
- Finally, spark conversations and let them happen. Let your community share their thoughts and experiences. The conversations are for your community. They are about what matters to them, not your brand.
Wildfire and Ad Age’s 6 Best Practices
According to research by Ad Age and Google’s Wildfire, of the 500 executives researched, there were some commonalities that were at the root of their success. They propose that the 6 commonalities found should be part of all brands social media strategy.
- Social should be jointly managed by the brand marketing and digital marketing teams. The brand marketing team’s storytelling expertise would play into Eloqua’s third tip, everything is a story.
- It would be a good idea to hire outside help that would supplement the internal marketing team. Social media constantly demands customer response and engagement, which is obviously a personnel and creative challenge. Your brand would see more success if managed by an agency or a combination of outside agency and in-house teams.
- Companies must think about how customers relate to their brands and create brand-specific social media strategies.
- All initiatives and success should be measured using technology.
- When a company markets across multiple social networks, they must target each network for its unique strength and audience behaviour. A one-size fits all approach is unlikely to garner success.
- Finally, mark out clear outcomes that benefit your brand and develop a measurement-specific social strategy.
Other Expert Opinions
You will find the above advice echoed in various blogs and news sites such as SEO News, which agrees with the second and fourth points by Wildfire and Ad Age. Social media is synonymous with dynamic communities of active users that need constant attention.
Search Engine Watch has two main points that are worth mentioning. Brands need to invest in social advertising, and choose social platforms on which to have a presence carefully. Their first point is due to the fact that it has recently become harder to succeed on Facebook unless you pay. And this is likely true for all major platforms, even Google+. Google has recently launched their social advertising model, which allows Google+ posts to appear as ads on their networks. You can read the full article here.
Their second point is a very practical one. With the diverse variety of social media platforms, the main ones and the continual influx of newcomers, your brand will not be suited for each one. As stated earlier in Google Wildfire’s findings, social media requires constant attention. It’s best to focus on certain ones where you are confident you can position your brand as a thought leader in your expertise. It’s also important to remember that each social platform has different users or audiences – choose a platform with an audience that is eager to hear your story.
Our own tip for your brand
Our one tip to add is to adhere to both the official and unofficial rules of etiquette. Each social media platform has its own culture. If you intend on just managing your social media in-house, reaching out to power-users on specific platforms would be beneficial in understanding the accepted etiquette. Many such users have blogs providing helpful tips on how to engage effectively, and most importantly, authentically.
As stated earlier, social media is ever evolving. To effectively manage your brand, you should evolve with it. Implementing these tips would be a great way to start.