This biggest challenge today for any organization is to find the right social media channels to promote their brand. With all the businesses moving online during the COVID-19 pandemic, your company needs to ace the social and digital marketing strategy to be a notch higher than your competitors. Finding the best channel to announce the latest goods and services by your brand requires a strategic and smart move. We provide you with the perfect strategy for having a strong social media presence and choosing the most appropriate channel for your organization!
Does your company need a Twitter account or an Instagram account? Is LinkedIn the right choice for your company? or will Instagram be the right social media app to spread brand awareness? Answering these questions can be a mind-boggling and challenging task. Your focus and efforts have to be in the right direction to drive the best results and achieve the goals and objectives of your organization. It is imperative to note that your company doesn’t need to be on every social media platform. Quality matters a lot more than quantity here. Your strategy has to be creative and content compelling to engage your target audiences and keep them hooked throughout.
Every industry has a few channels that work for them. Your task is to find that perfect channel or channels that will make the most significant impact on your audiences. It requires well-documented research, a spot-on strategy, and a distinctive approach to be on the top of your social media game.
We provide you 7-easy hands-on tips to head in the right direction.
1. Know your target audience thoroughly and the social media channels they are using!
The first and foremost question to answer is who are your audiences and the social media networks on which they are active. Spend maximum time defining your audiences and the channels where they spend their time as it’s the most crucial aspect of your research. Dig into questions like who make up your audience? What are their demographics? Which networks are their favorite? What type of content do they find most intriguing and engaging? Facebook Audience Insights is a great tool to gather this data.
For example, if your organization wants to target young people, then Instagram and Facebook would be an ideal option for the range of 25-29 years old, and TikTok for the younger ones. According to Reuters, 60% of TikTok monthly active users (MAU) in the US are aged between 16-24 years old. But as TikTok is increasing unpopularity, the app demographics are continuously evolving. Among its US users, 30% are 45-65 years old which proves that TikTok is no longer an app for kids only. Having said that, if your audience uses primarily LinkedIn, then setting up an Instagram or Pinterest account would be a futile effort.
2. Define your industry and user experience!
It is time for some introspection of your brand, business, and organization. Before moving any further, consider that not all social media channels will benefit your brand. Probe deeper into questions such as Is my company B2B or B2C? Do I sell my products/services to other businesses or customers? Does my brand need more visual content that’s appealing to the audiences? Which channels would associate best with my brand and objectives? And most importantly, what kind of user experience do I want to provide?
For example, if your industry is the beauty or fashion industry, and you are targeting women with video user experience, using Instagram and TikTok would be the most viable option for you. Let’s take Louis Vuitton REELS videos as an example. The same video posted 12 hours after, is getting 533K views on Instagram vs. 2.1M views on TikTok (October 9, 2020).
3. Find and analyze the social media channels that bring the maximum traffic!
The key is to invest your time and energy in the channels that already bring you traffic and respond positively to your brand and services. The idea is to provide relevant content and make it more engaging on these channels. Focus on questions like which all social media channels are producing the maximum traffic to your traffic, and what is the pattern? Using Google Analytics and Social & Network Referrals can help you a great deal in analyzing the resources. For example, if LinkedIn and YouTube are bringing the most traffic to your website, then aiming at Snapchat or Pinterest for your brand would seem irrational. Staying focused and devising the right strategy is the key to success.
4. Analyze your competitors well!
Since you want to outperform your competitors, you need to be well-versed with their strategy. It’s a world full of competition, and you get to succeed by analyzing your competitors. As the saying rightly goes, wise people learn from others’ mistakes. Determine your competitor’s media engagements and the social networks that work for them and the ones that are not working from them. Be constantly aware of the market scenario, avoid repeating the mistakes of your competitors, and devise strategies that outdo their plans. It is truly a smart and calculated move.
5. Find out the most befitting content to publish!
After analyzing your audiences, your brand, and your competitors, it's time to decide on the content to be published. Find out the content that most engages and resonates with your audiences. The type of content will determine the social media channel for your organization. It’s time to have a strong social media presence by posting the most pertinent content. If your content is professional, short, and to the point, it is better to use LinkedIn and Twitter. If you want to use audio-visual content and convey your idea through pictures and small-video formats, then Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok would be an ideal choice. Through Facebook and Instagram, you could create advertisements to have a wider reach. The nature of your content can make a huge difference.
LinkedIn Stories are also a good way to showcase you behind the scenes business: introduce members of your team, celebrate and share your big Milestones.
6. Define the goals and objectives you want to achieve through social media channels!
Staying focused is key to your brand's success. Be very sure and accurate on what your company desires to achieve through the social media presence.
It could be any objective, be it increasing brand awareness, enhancing the sales of your products/services, or generating more traffic to your website. Keeping the goal in focus and assessing the positives and negatives of each social media channel for achieving your objectives will not only help you in selecting the best social media channel but also the most appropriate content for your growth and success.
7. Last but not least, put your extensive research and analysis into action!
Now is the time to reflect on the above points and make a sound decision! It's time to put your extensive research and analysis into action. Assess each social media platform minutely, their engagements, the kind of content that it uses, and its pros and cons. Studying in detail the statistics and the pros and cons of all social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok will help you in this final stage of choosing your channel/ channels. The process of making the right choice is time-consuming and tedious. However, every effort and step taken in the right direction will derive the ultimate results for you. Follow the above steps for making the whole process easier and quicker!
Copy: Simran Sodhi (press@agh-pr.com) / AGH (alexandra.gantier-hochart@agh-pr.com)
Pictures: Unsplash (Predators, Kyie Song, Carlos Muza, Freddy Marschall, Josy Huang, Brett Jordan)