An average social media user has a presence on five different platforms. Around 2.1 billion people or 30% of Earth’s population, are active on social media. The staggering growth of platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram has prompted brands to create accounts on as many channels as they can.
But how do you avoid repetitive messages and disconnected experiences with so many accounts to manage?
Integrate within social media marketing
Most companies use around three social media channels and there could be multiple handles for each channel. To give the audience a cohesive brand experience, marketers should leverage each channel’s strengths and audience characteristics.
The funnel AIDA
Remember the famous purchase funnel in marketing? Applied here, it means working out the stage of the buyer’s journey and matching it with your social media content.
- Attention: Posts that capture people’s attention and have viral-like qualities. Think about Snapchat stories, Facebook videos.
- Desire: Increase liking and affinity. Think polished Instagram images.
- Interest: Increase trust and authority. Think LinkedIn Pulse posts.
- Action: Encourage conversion. Think Twitter live chat sessions, Pinterest sweepstakes.
Audience demographics
Plenty of research is available about the demographics of key social networking sites. Brands who want to target multiple customer segments can devise strategies accordingly.
For instance, Pinterest is often used by women and higher-educated women; Twitter caters to urban population; Snapchat attracts millennials and younger users; LinkedIn is popular among educated, high-income users.
Channel characteristics
When creating and promoting content, marketers need to think about tapping unique strengths of various social media channels.
For example, regarding content discovery, hashtags are effectively utilised in Twitter and Instagram.
Sharing the same piece of content
Keep in mind the requirements on different channels regarding length and format. Remember to vary the message even though you are sharing the same piece across different channels. No one wants to engage with a brand that sounds like a robot.
Share different content / content format
This is slightly more obvious than the point above. Apart from the common uses such as YouTube for videos, Instagram for images, think about the nature of the content. For instance, users expect company news/updates on Facebook and Twitter more; curation usually happens on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Branding aspects
One of the reasons brands don’t achieve ROI on social media is because they don’t deliver a cohesive brand experience. Although different channels have different audience demographics, if users feel your brand personalities/values are fragmented, they won’t see you as genuine.
Some simple tips include:
- Having similar look and feel, using similar handles across channels.
- Using a social media scheduling tool/analysis platform to have a complete picture of all channels you use.
Integrate with other marketing channels
Social media is only one channel in your overall marketing communications. Thus, avoid becoming too obsessed with the trends and forgetting about other channels which might attract higher engagement.
A few things you can do to tie social media with other marketing efforts:
- Give your audience the option to choose which social media channel to use for following you in your email newsletter and website.
- Utilise SEO-focused keywords for social media posts.
- Implement share buttons and shareable quotes on your blog.
