What makes a strong social media strategy?

We are going to get right down to business. We are strong believers that social media should be a healthy balance of branding, community, and promotion. If one of the three pillars are out of balance, then it can cause your social media strategy to get into a weird funk (yes, we said funk). It can also cause your audience to disengage and even effect your social media advertising results.

Social media is a perfect way to showcase your brand and company culture.

People want to know the faces behind the screen! They want to know about the company BBQs and see photos of people they know. They want to know how you give back to the community and that you’re hiring new team members. In last year or so, we have seen dramatically different results from when we publish a stock photo vs a photo of one of our team photos – or even a photo of our cool new office.  Real photos of real people and real places matter! It helps people connect with you.

Social media is a perfect way to building community and have conversations with your audience.

Believe it or not, people DO have conversations on social media! There is so much that a company can learn from the conversations being had on social platforms. You can either let the conversations happen and ignore it, or you can watch, listen and chime in when the time is right. Sometimes it is just the little things, like responding to your Inbox, replying to comments and even engaging on other companies’ pages. This is your opportunity to show other people just how great and caring of a company you are – what you do online matters.

Social media is a perfect place for promotion.

If someone follows your business on social media, but can’t tell what you do or sell, that’s a problem. Don’t be afraid to sell on social media! So long as you aren’t promoting your products and services on every single post you publish – then yes, social media is a great place to promote your company. There are several different ways you can build your social media strategy to balance out branding, community and promotion – but here is one way you could structure your content to make sure you aren’t over promoting your services:

Organic content focuses on branding and community 80% of the time, and 20% of the time is dedicated to product/service features. Then utilize the advertising platforms within that social network to generate more specific call-to-actions and product/service promotions.

Social Media Takes Time.

If you walk away with one thing from this post, please let it be known that it takes time. Regardless if you’ve had a Facebook page for years, or if you just created the page yesterday, it will still take time. Also, if you are expecting Facebook advertising to give you an insane amount of leads after running your first ad for 48 hours – that is most likely an unrealistic expectation.

Going from zero to 95 in a matter of 5 seconds can cause more damage than good to your social media strategy and actually turn away your audience. No one wants to see, hear, or share posts from you that are 100% self-promotion. Just by including a call-to-action like “request a quote” on every post isn’t going to make someone click on the link or fill out a form. People must buy into WHO you are first – they have to believe in what you do – and why you do it – before they will buy from you. The concept isn’t much different from any other sales strategy just because it’s on social media. That’s why we say there must be a healthy balance of branding, community and promotion.

If you need to refresh your social media strategy, you know how to reach us 😊