How Sound is your Social Media?
Thinking about going global?
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19th November 2016
To kick things off let’s get the social media usage stats on the table. In the UK Facebook has about 32 million users, YouTube has slightly over 19 million, Twitter has 15 million users, Instagram has 14 million users, Pinterest has almost ten and half million users, and Snapchat weighs in at ten million.
So in case you had wondered the various social media platforms offer us digital marketers a tremendous opportunity. The only problem is how do we ensure we have a sound social media strategy? Well here are a few things to consider.
Time
How much of it do you have to devote to social? Creating content takes time, and so does engagement with users. You can look to automate some elements of social but if you are not keen in dealing with a robot yourself don’t expect your potential customers to be either. Common marketing convention is that one should send at least a tweet or a Facebook post a day but given that according to the IAB the average person in the UK spends almost three hours on social media you might need to spend longer than you thought on social.
Cost
Generating organic growth on social is a timely affair much like gardening you need to prune and tend your social media profile but as digital marketers we do have another choice – paid social. Sponsored posts and tweets can be incredibly efficient compared to banner ads and pop-ups on a traditional online site as you know ‘you have the eyeballs’ of your potential customer and PPC or CPC makes it money well spent. Yes, budget is always going to be an issue, but at least you know precisely what the results are from the money you have spent.
Platform
As the adage goes ‘less is more’ with the plethora of social media platforms the temptation to be everywhere is great, and the fear of putting all of your eggs in one basket is a real one too. So you need to take a good look at two things:
- What platforms do your current customers use? I am not suggested emailing them all to get the answer, but a bit of cursory research will give you some quick replies, certainly enough to make an informed decision rather that a gut feel one.
- What platforms do our potential customers use? Sorry for stating the obvious but many a social media strategy has run adrift because this question was not answered. If you target demographic are not on Twitter, don’t run a campaign on it! If your dream customers are active on Pinterest get pinning!
