The Coronavirus lockdown measures have led to an inevitable move from face to face meetings to the utilisation of technology to keep the world ticking along. Many business that were deemed to be non-essential by the government have taken this opportunity to look into what changes they could make to their current business practices to put them on the front foot when lockdown was eased.
As well as looking at updating their technology, they have also looked at new ways in which they can engage with their current and potential customers.
Why Social Media?
Social media is growing, and it’s growing fast. When a company engages effectively with social media they are taking their marketing direct to their customer and nurturing a relationship on a social level. Social media marketing also allows for a virtual word of mouth effect, friends share your content and can endorse your company through the web.
Facebook is by far the biggest and most active social media platform but there are several social media platforms and it’s best to do your research to see where your activity will get you the most return.
Starting Your Research
As mentioned above it is best to do your research rather than just to launch right in! Creating a social media strategy helps you organise your efforts balancing your time resources against where you will get the most engagement.
Examples of questions you should ask your self during the research phase:
- Where do my current customers access social media? What platforms do they use?
- Where do my target customers access social media? What platforms do they use?
- Which platforms do your competitors use? How successful are they on these platforms?
- What else are my customers interested in apart from my product or service?
Customer Research
If you are researching B2B customers it is important to see how active they are on social media and what kind of content they post for their customers. This will give you an insight into not only the way they think, but what is most important to them, allowing you to tailor your approach.
Competitor Research
When researching competitors – look for what they do badly, look for what they do well, and look for what you could do differently.
If your competitors are successful on a certain platform, why are they successful there? Do they have excellent content? How often are they engaging?
If a successful competitor is posting good content on a platform but they seem to receive little to no engagement – it may be that the platform they are posting on is just not right for your sector, product, or service.
What’s Next?
Once you have completed your social media strategy research it’s important to look at the time you have to engage with social media and prioritise your efforts from there. If you have a large marketing team you may be able to have a member of staff that concentrates wholly on social media. If you are in a smaller business it is better to prioritise the platforms that you think will perform best for you.
Engage With Relevant Groups Or Communities
Depending on the platforms you choose it may be a good idea to engage with any groups that your customers engage with, if you don’t think there is a relevant group and you can see a gap in the market, you may consider starting your own community or group to fill that gap and engage with potential customers.
Content Calendar
Create your own content calendar paying particularly attention to days of the year that are important to your company, or specific days of the year that are celebrated online that are relevant to your product or service. Look for hashtags that relate to these important dates and use them on the relevant days.
Analysis
When you have started posting it is best to review your efforts alongside your social media strategy. It’s important to create a record of how successful your social media marketing efforts are so you can ascertain what works and what doesn’t work for you.
Always put the results of your review into action and ask questions of how you could do something differently to make it work better.
Flex4 OPS
The Flex4 team have over 10 years’ experience in business development, sales, marketing, project management, website, and digital marketing and have the skills and expertise to create a progressive and successful digital marketing strategy for your business.
For more information on our print ecommerce websites and digital marketing services email us at info@onlineprintsolution.co.uk or check out our website www.onlineprintsolution.co.uk.