3rd July 2012

The 5 Key Steps To Social Media Success

Amongst the ever-growing social media world, there are still 3 sites that reign king. FacebookTwitter and Youtube are now more commonly known in social media vernacular as “The Big 3”, and should be the main targets for current social media planning. We will look at five strategies that will help you dominate social media’s Big 3.

1. Increasing Social Reach

Social reach is the total number of customers and prospects a brand can reach through its combined social footprint across all social networks. To calculate your brand’s Social Reach, add up the total number of fans and followers on all of your social media platforms.

Having social reach means having the ability to target a range of customers, if you don’t have reach, you don’t have traction. To increase your reach, make sure that you:

  • Update regularly
  • Use keywords so search engines are able to find your posts more easily
  • Add social links and icons to your site
  • Add sharing buttons
  • Make friends by talking to people directly
  • Add a human element to your posts (post under a real name, not just under the brand)

2. Increasing Fan Engagement with Content

Fan engagement is the ability to keep the attention of your audience. It is also the enduring effect of content to motivate an audience to do something.

The key is to develop a strategy for creating creative, non-promotional content. Fans and followers pay attention to powerful content, which can be funny, emotional, controversial or empathetic. Aim for striking a chord with your audience, and most importantly, post what is in line with the values of your brand and relevant to your audience. This can be asking fans to post pictures with their latest canon camera, or writing headlines to a funny picture. Put simply, if the content is strong, people will be engaged.

3. Identify and Engage Influencers

An Influencer is a person who has the ability to direct and persuade others into engagement with your brand. Utilization of Influencers can allow your brand to get social reach that would not be possible otherwise, due to piggybacking on the credibility of the Influencer.

There are two types of influencers:

Internal – These Influencers are the heavy users/buyers of your product and the light users, but great marketers of your product. Top buyers should be rewarded with exclusive offers and specials and Top marketers should be rewarded with public recognition of their feedback and participation.

External – These influencers are those who are outside the reach of your brand. People who influence a potential market can be contacted and approached with a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” tactic. Usage of tools such as Traackr, PeekYou and PeerIndex can help you identify potential external influencers.

4. Increase Lead Generation

Lead generation is the process of identifying prospective customers for a sales pitch or further marketing efforts. Within the context of social media, it is important to not be too forceful with the sales message, but rather help the consumers and build a relationship.

To increase Lead Generation effectively, perform searches on demand-based queries like “need” and “can someone recommend” etc. Help consumers with their issues, even if it means providing a solution that is different to your own product. By building trust and respect within your brand, consumers will respond favourably.

5. Apply Analytics to Know What Works

After all the effort you have put into your social media approach, it is crucial to see if it is really working. External analytics platforms such as Google Analytics or Omniture will enable you to see the fruits of your labour. It is important to measure each and every campaign to continuously optimise the return on your efforts.

Google Analytics Conversion Report shows marketers the amount of goal conversions influenced by a brand’s social marketing efforts, displayed in visual charts that plot out the estimated monetary value of the results. Using this information, you will be able to make a more realistic and visceral judgement on your future social media efforts.

Source: Awareness-Social Media Software : Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YoutTube

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