Social media occupies a central role in today's consumer interaction space. Yet, says head of social media and insights at 25AM Gordon Geldenhuys, many brands rush into social media without putting a coherent strategy in place that covers resourcing, objectives and execution for their social media platforms.
Here are five best practices Geldenhuys says have proven to yield good results for businesses that have planned social media strategies and harnessed the massive networking potential of the online communication platforms:
1. Look beyond the likes: Consumers will not visit just because a brand has built a page. Before getting started with social media, brands must ask themselves what they hope to achieve through their social media presence, so that they can create an appropriate strategy. "Likes" and "followers" are not business objectives, though they can be useful metric for understanding reach and audience engagement.
Does the brand want to learn more about how consumers perceive its product? Does it want to build customer relationships? Deflect calls from its call centre? Or enhance its reputation? All of the above? These are more meaningful objectives to set and measure than likes and shares, which are more about vanity than performance.
2. Accept that customers are in control: Brands are used to being in complete control of their marketing channels, but in social media, customers have a voice and will drive much of the conversation. This means brands must listen rather than merely talk.
The real art in social media lies in how well a brand deals with queries, problems, complaints, and (occasionally) praise. For many organisations, succeeding in this realm will mean they'll need to be faster, more agile, and more transparent in how they interact with their customers.
3. Align social media with other channels: Social media does not exist apart from the rest of the business. If the brand runs an advert on TV or in print, it will be discussed and dissected on Twitter. If a customer has a poor call centre experience, she might take it to Facebook. And if the person running a social media account makes a promise to the customer, the customer will expect this promise to be honoured when he or she goes to a physical store.
Savvy brands feed the whole organisation with information they learn from social media about what customers think of their products, customer service, competitors and so forth. And good marketing managers think about how they can use social media to inspire customers to continue campaign conversations long after a campaign has run.
4. Provide support from senior management: Too many marketing managers assign a junior member of staff to social media community management because they figure millennials understand "this social media stuff". Quite frankly, in some organisations, putting a junior in charge of social media also reflects the fact that senior management does not take social media seriously.
But a good social media strategy demands buy-in from the top. Though juniors can run the brand's social media accounts day-to-day, strategy and policies should be driven by senior customer service, sales and marketing managers - and juniors should have access to a senior manager to help them with any complications.
What is more, CEOs and other high-ranking staff members should take part in the social conversation. Through this, they can inspire trust with consumers. They can also learn a great deal about their customers through direct social interactions with them.
5. Keep content fresh and relevant: Social media demands fresh and relevant content everyday - and, in some cases, several times a day. Brands that neglect to update their content will lose fans, followers and the opportunity to engage with their customers.
This content must not be hard-sell product information - it should instead be reader-centred information that promotes conversation and that is useful, entertaining, and sharable. A fast-moving consumer goods company with food brands, for example, could offer recipes or healthy living tips in social media rather than bombarding its audience with branded advertising.
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