In the past, if you wanted to advertise, it was complicated. There were a lot of steps and a lot of contacts to get from idea to impression, and not many alternative paths were available.
Today, social media gives organizations a direct path from idea to impression. If you want to let your customers know about a sale, you no longer have to do an ad buy with the cable company (although you may still decide to). You can just post an update on Facebook.
Moreover, social media gives you an all-new way to market to your customers by striking up conversations. TV, print, billboards, and radio ads are all one-way, but social gives us engagement in real-time. We can get to know our audience, and they can get to know us. Powerful stuff.
It’s at your fingertips. You have the ability to form deeper connections with your customers.
So why aren’t you doing it?
Direct doesn’t mean effortless, and that gives a lot of decisionmakers pause. Social media is a marketing tool you should definitely be taking advantage of, but missing two factors can impede its effectiveness: quality and consistency. Without these, progress can be slow, or even nonexistent. Scary!
Here’s how to get them in order so that you can make waves on social media.
QUALITY
You have to show people stuff that captures their attention. If your posts are hum-drum, you aren’t going to make progress. Housekeeping announcements are fine every once in a while, and so is hard selling, but don’t make that the focus of your page.
In another article, I discussed 5 Ways to Make Social Media Marketing Feel Less Like a Chore. The goal was to introduce you to a better class of social media post — stuff worth reading, worth sharing, and worth following for more.
Here’s the list. Check out the article for explanations and ideas.
- Educate
- Introduce to friends and heroes
- Share an amazing spectacle
- Show off something you’re proud of
- Let people get to know the people behind the brand
There is an enormous amount of content available today, and you’re competing with all of it. Luckily for you, the average user spends 2 hours, 24 minutes on social media every day, making up 50% of their total time spent on their mobile device, so we know the audience is there. Give them something worth tuning in to.
If you provide high-quality content that’s interesting to view, you can build a fanbase. Having a fanbase means that you can narrow your focus, because you’ve already got the attention of a passionate subculture who are excited to tune in and eager to spread the word. You can stop fighting for attention and start engaging with fans, who will bring more people to you that are like them.
Another part of quality is polish. You wouldn’t send out a flyer that hadn’t been proofread, or use a crappy picture in a newspaper ad, yet I see brands do this all the time on social media. Quality means having as much pride in your digital image as you do in your storefront, print, and reputation.
CONSISTENCY
CONSISTENCY + FREQUENCY = AUDIENCE GROWTH
On social media, we are all at the mercy of the algorithm. It chooses what is displayed and what is effectively invisible. It’s scary and mysterious, but there is a way to improve your chances: Creating content regularly.
First, social media networks are all about content, and the brands that generate volumes of it get rewarded with more organic reach.
Second, it makes it easier for fans to find you. If you post a new podcast on your page every Tuesday at 4PM, if I liked my first experience, I know where and when to find more. “Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”
Post new stuff all the time and you’re interesting. Let it slide and you’ll be forgotten.
I tell my clients to think of their social media pages as a sort of scrapbook for their business. It’s a record of everything you have going on. If there’s huge gaps in posting, users may just start to wonder if you’re even still in business.
The sad thing is, for a lot of brands, social media marketing isn’t much of a priority. When they get busy, it’s the first thing they let slide.
All of this stuff isn’t hard to do, but it is difficult.
It takes careful thought and planning to create quality posts, and the skills involved in the production take time and effort to acquire.
Consistent posting means making a commitment to doing a job. Discipline is necessary, especially when writer’s block inevitably arrives.
If you are up to the challenge, I applaud you and hope you find massive success. Inspiration is everywhere, and tutorials, free and paid, are plentiful to fill gaps in your knowledge. I know that you can do it if you commit to the task.
If you have doubts, though, consider hiring a social media professional. Quality and consistency are what we sell. With the knowledge that your digital image is in good hands, you can focus on what matters most to you: Running your organization and serving your stakeholders.
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Acknowledgements go to Tech Jury, where I retrieved the statistics on social media usage: How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media in 2021?
