Today social media accounts validate our existence, our relationships, our friendships, our achievements, our promotions, our business trips, our vacations, our lifestyle and everything a consumer is.
What more does a marketer want? The target audience is an open book on social media platforms. Not only will they share their geographic & demographic information but will also share their psychographic and behavioral traits. Marketers & companies today reach out to millions of these consumers through social media platforms, engage with them to ultimately achieve conversions. And this has been a very effective and efficient marketing model so far.
But is that all?
Every coin has a flip side and so is true with social media. Today I will share five hard truths about social media and what you need to do about it?
Algorithms:
All social media platforms especially Facebook today runs on a very strict algorithm. It has almost brought down my organic brand engagement to nil and has reduced the organic reach significantly. As you pay, as you get is the mantra today. What we marketers can do about this is create viral content. Content that a consumer can't resist but share. Content could be funny, could be emotional, could be informational. Bring the shareability quotient in your content, and you will receive huge talking points and mentions about your brand. Touch the emotional or intellectual chord. This could be done for content that you would not want to boost.
Choose your channels well:
Your target audience could be everywhere. But make sure you don't start putting money in all the channels. While Facebook Ads & Facebook sponsored posts could bring you website traffic, but Instagram sponsored ads and posts bring visibility and engagement. Stop treating every channel as a sales funnel. You would only end up burning money. Choose your channels well.
Social Media cannot alone run the party:
It is critical to understand that social media is one element of marketing. It alone cannot host a successful party. Club your social media efforts with email marketing, newsletters and search engine optimization.
Reviews:
Social media could bring you many likes and comments which will boost your brand's confidence but also will it bring a few negative reviews just enough to spoil the brand's reputation. Unhappy consumers slapping negative reviews on your Facebook wall or Twitter handle could bring you a run for your money, and all this could be done by just one tweet or just one bad review. Concentrate on giving excellent services, handling grievances on social media swiftly and responsibly. #Indianrailways and Sushma Swaraj has been quite a good examples these days.
Data:
It's not a consumer acquired unless he buys the second time. Measure, measure, measure! Analyze data on a regular basis. What it looks is not always the case. Social media analytics gives you a whole bunch of data. Sometimes more than what you need. Choose your metrics well and then analyze. High bounce rate could be a result of not only an ineffective ad but also a slow page load time. Connect Google Analytics with your social media pages to get a near accurate measure of your efforts.
Social Media is a multi-discipline ecosystem that requires an understanding of how it all fits together. Engage, Act, Convert, Measure, Repeat Purchase all need to be in the mix.
