Social media marketing campaigns may or may not also use traditional media such as television or print magazines and newspapers, or digital media such as websites and games. As with most communication efforts, using social well for your organization requires a significant investment of your time and money, and you want to be sure you’re in the right place to support your business strategy and objectives.
Use the Rule of Thirds
Generally speaking, social media accounts want to abide by the rules of thirds: 1/3 promoting your product or services, 1/3 interacting with others, and 1/3 sharing industry news and tips you believe your followers could benefit from.
It’s important that you balance your social media posts just as you would your face-to-face conversations with a friend. Endorse things that others have done, show that you’re involved in relevant news, and limit how much you talk about yourself.
Promote
First and perhaps foremost in your mind: Promotion. This is often where an organization’s social media attention focuses, as it’s easiest to talk about what you know best — your own goods and services. When giving a speech, it’s not uncommon to include a personal anecdote to amplify the message.
The speech loses value, however, when the anecdote becomes the bulk of the message. What was originally meant to supplement the main idea has now become the focus, and this is where many accounts exert most of their social media efforts.
Consider the example that we can all unfortunately relate to: meeting someone who only wants to talk about him/herself. When someone limits the topic of conversation to the individual, there isn’t any real conversing. So, social media managers, get off your high-horse and switch up the topics.
Engage
It’s in the name -- ‘social’ media. It exists to become a platform where people can interact and share experiences with each other. Conversing with your public could be as simple as liking an influencer’s post, retweeting or sharing someone else’s message, or mentioning a follower when you post a question to start a conversation in your community.
Ignoring the conversational aspect of social media is similar to a speech-giver skipping the Q&A section of the seminar. Without creating an environment to listen to the audience, you’re sending an “I don’t care for your input” type of message, and that could bring a swift end to any community building.
The last element of the social media rule of thirds goes into the bigger picture, and thus brings us to the share phase.
Share
Just as conversations show interest in other people, sharing relevant content shows interest in your industry, something greater than your brand.
Any nonprofit, business -- you name it, is part of a whole. Using content that revolves around organizations like your own shows a greater comprehension of the industry.
Additionally, you avoid the trap of talking too much about your own goods and services, which would otherwise take away from the validity of your social media messaging.
Looking at which other non-profits have found the right balance can encourage your messaging (and hopefully results!) to mirror theirs.
Finding the Balance
The bottom-line for creating social media communities that will thrive is all about finding a balance. Aiming for 1/3 promotion, 1/3 conversation, and 1/3 industry information, you can deliver the most successful messaging to your audiences.
Don't Mistake New Tools for Goals
Why Tools are Mistaken for Goals
It’s an easy mistake for a busy marketer to make. After all, it’s common to set goals once a year, codify them in the sacred marketing plan, and then do a deep dive into day-to-day implementation with all of its details on myriad channels, tactics and tools. Specific metrics and regular reporting (a good thing generally) can reinforce this confusion by listing each tactic next to its agreed-upon measure. Goals, especially long-term goals, can get lost in the daily hustle.
Tools are Sexy
The latest shiny object is often all the talk at every social function, blog and trade journal. It can be easy to lose perspective. Although every client’s audience and goals are different, just look at some of the new tools we’ve explored the potential of on the Change Conversations blog over two years in the past:
2013
- Newsle
- Google+
- Prezi
- Storify
- Evernote
- LinkedIn’s new functions
- Various Visual Tools
2017
- Snapchat
- Canva
- CRMs (Customer, or Constituent, Relationship Management)
- LinkedIn's new functions
- Facebook’s new video and advertising options
- Various Video Tools
Marketers' Current Seductions
Building on the example for educators, here are the marketing tools and shiny objects we see being confused most often with marketing goals.
Change Marketers cannot afford this mistake
Confusing tools with marketing goals is the antithesis of a consistent, integrated marketing effort. Nonprofits and values-based businesses have a shared communication goal — changing minds, the challenge of moving beyond creating awareness to motivating action. With your time often over-loaded and your budget under-resourced, losing sight of your audience and your goal is a mistake you can least afford to make. But the pressure (from well-meaning board members and volunteers) to use a hot new tool can be intense.
Shiny Object Self Defense
The best response to a request to use a new tool is to ask others (or yourself) a series of five questions:
- Are your customers there?
Obviously if you are at the beginning of something new, your customers may not be there yet, but do you think they will be soon? Do they tend to be early adopters? If not, your time and money is nearly always better spent on customer-focused activities. - Can you ‘own’ it?
Can the results of your investment get a copyright, trademark, be saved or protected in some way? If this is a new channel, should it be classified as paid, owned, or earned media? If not fully owned, what guidelines govern your relationship? - Can it offer synergy with other marketing efforts?
Something new that you can integrate into your strategic marketing plan and use to get more out of what you are already doing is generally a win-win. - Is there a market advantage from being in early?
Depending on your industry and your positioning, being on the leading edge as one of the first to adopt a promising new marketing technology can be expected, if not necessary. Then again, if yours is a more conservative world, you don’t want to forget the wisdom in the term ‘bleeding edge.’ - Do you have the capacity to do it well?
You can only do so much. It’s easy to be distracted and lose sight of the reality that no matter how promising something new is, you must execute it well to derive any benefit. In marketing communications, in particular, a low-quality implementation can be much worse than doing nothing at all.
Every organization will answer these questions differently, of course. If you can answer “yes” to 3 out of 5 of these questions, we generally think this new whatever is probably worth exploring further. If you answer yes to 5 out of 5, jump on it! It may still turn out to be a short-term infatuation, but it’s more likely to be a tool that will advance your goals and something you won’t want to miss adding to your marketing toolbox.
Managing your Social Media
“I don’t have time to be active on so many different social media accounts."
The surge of social media networks popping up may have you feeling this way, and rightly so. Maintaining social media accounts can take a lot of time and effort. But, at this point, social media is no longer a choice for businesses. If your customers are there, you should be there too.
You aren’t alone in feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time it takes to maintain all of the different social media accounts, but if the social-media-sphere is good for anything, it’s innovation and adaptation. Social media management apps were created to help with that problem.
“Another app I have to download?”
Yes, it’s another app to download. But, with social media management you’ll find that it’s a one-stop-shop for all of your social media needs. Let’s breakdown just a few of the reasons why social media management apps are saving you time and energy.
- They allow you to work with all of your social media accounts in one place. No more switching back and forth between your different social media accounts on your computer or between different apps on your phone.
- You will have access to analytics tools that help you see how well your message is being received and who/how many are seeing it.
- You can have other people post for you or create your posts when you don’t have time to do it yourself. Most even offer a screening service so you can approve other employee’s posts before they are posted.
- You can create “lists” and start monitoring on social media. You’ll know what people are saying about you without searching, even if they don’t tag you directly.
- Most importantly, you can schedule posts for certain times and days.
“What’s so important about scheduling posts?”
Creating a consistent schedule for your future social media activity is key to successful marketing on social media. It is the most useful service provided by social media management apps. An annoying task that took you 30 minutes every day, becomes a once a week task that will result in higher-quality content and less stress. Being able to take the time to write something thoughtful and relevant for every post, instead of hastily typing up a message minutes before it gets posted, will boost your social media presence immensely.
It also lets you take advantage of tons of research that help pinpoint the most likely times that your customers will see your posts. There is research on how often you should post on each network too!
These times and frequencies may not always be ideal for you, but with scheduled posts, you don’t have to worry about being too busy or forgetting. You’ll know that your high-quality posts will go up at the perfect time at the right frequency to successfully engage your customers. If the frequencies seem too much, remember the “rule of thirds”. It will help you reach your ideal posting frequency every week.
“Great! I’ll get the social media management app and get started!”
If only it were that easy! There isn't just one universal app that falls under social media management, there are tons of options out there. We’ve determined these 4 apps on the market today offer the most value for a small business.
- Hootsuite
- CoSchedule
- Buffer
- Sprout Social
If none of these sounds familiar to you, that’s okay. Let's break down the pros and cons of each app so you can determine which one seems like the right fit for your small business. Each one also offers free trials, ranging from a week to 30 days, so you can test each platform and choose which one is right for your business.
Pros:
- Hootsuite supports the most social media networks out of these options listed. They are the only ones that support YouTube scheduling.
- Creating streams to monitor your social media is simple to set up and offers great customizability.
Cons:
- Hootsuite has the reputation of being complicated. You will spend some time learning to fully take advantage of all of its offerings.
- The free version of Hootsuite is VERY stripped down. Most businesses will often find that they have to pick one of the paid options.
Pros:
- CoSchedule is the best at scheduling your blog posts among these options.
- They make it easy to collaborate between your team members and allows you to assign tasks to certain people.
Cons:
- CoSchedule really lacks in functions for social media that isn’t related to your blog posts.
- If you’re a seasoned blogger, it may feel like you don’t need many of the tools offered.
Pros:
- Very user-friendly interface. Even a novice can pick this up and use it effectively.
- Their pricing is all-in-one, no extra costs for special features.
Cons:
- It has less functionality to monitor others and keeps its focus on your own scheduling.
- It has all the essentials, but not much else. (This could be a pro, depending on your view of these tools)
Pros:
- One of Sprout Socials unique tools is the ability to keep track of users who have interacted with you or mentioned you. From here you can determine if that is someone you want to continue to pursue as a potential client.
- Their tools make Customer Relationship Management easy. Keeping track of information in one organized place for each client.
Cons:
- Sprout Social is the most expensive option listed here at the basic level. Not only is it $99/month for their cheapest plan, but that’s per user.
- They only support 5 social media networks, much less than most others on this list. (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+)
The Bottom Line
If none of these appeal to you, that’s okay! These are just four options; a quick search will provide you with a long list of social media management apps that can help you and your small business. Marketing to your audience through social media is a necessity if you want to build relationships with your customers and maintain a strong brand image online. Social media can be daunting, but with a little help it’ll be nothing but smooth sailing.