The reality of 2015 is that for many businesses, social media will have to have a bigger slice of the marketing and advertising budget. Business cannot ignore the fact that many social media sites are gaining popularity with consumers, and its a way to reach out and speak to new and existing customers on a regular basis. It’s also a reality that social media has started to restrict the reach of businesses to consumers and you will have to pay for it like other marketing channels.
So we know we have to pay for it .. but is there a strategy we should adopt? What should we be paying for? Are there ways to ensure ROI? More importantly what is the COI?
We have compiled a few tips to help you decide on where to spend and where to save on the major channels below:
BUT remember that every company is different and has unique goals and channels that will help them obtain those goals – the only way to really know where to spend your money & time is to speak to a professional about a digital strategy:
Facebook:
- Spend – Spend your time on developing a strategic targeted advertising campaign. Don’t just go after generic Likes. Think about identifying your target audience and we mean deeper than just a demographic. Really drill down to the ideal customer, so your adverts appeal to that specific person. Make sure the destination landing page is appropriate and has a strong CTA when you are sending traffic to your website from FB. Segment your audience, create specific ads for specific segments, split test your ads and separate out your news feed, mobile and right column into their own campaigns.
- Save – Don’t waste time thinking that Likes are a measurement of success – sometimes more likes can mean a saturated customer pool and your real fans do not get to see your message. Look at metrics that actually mean something – Engagement is key. Get your head around the fact that organic reach is pretty much 0 – Facebook is a paid platform end of story.
Twitter:
- Spend – They have just released their advertising platform to the masses. It no longer comes with a minimum $10,000 USD spend. Get to grips with the platform in order to see your tweets gaining far more traction. Be selective in who you follow. Use the Lists function to build up segmented sections of your following to address directly from time to time. Research trending #’s to ensure organic reach and newsjack that content – only do this when the trending news actually has a correlation to what you are saying in your tweets.
- Save – Top tip for wasted tweets, don’t start your tweets with the @. For example a tweet that starts ‘@socialeemedia thanks for the top tips’ will be seen by far fewer than one that goes ‘thanks for the top tips @socialeemedia – saved me so much time’ – why? if you start with the @handle, only people that follow you and the person you are addressing will see the tweet. Start with anything other than the @ and everyone will see your tweet.
Instagram:
- Spend – Invest in researching the right #hashtags and using them strategically. You can use a set of hashtags for the first time you post, and then reignite the same image with new hashtags after a few hours or day or when the post is relevant. Instagram is highly visual so you need to invest in quality visuals, video and content and make sure the topics are varied. Visuals and video do not (and should not) be photoshopped perfect – moreover they need to tell a story and give insider information about the brand.
- Save – Unless you are a product or service that is needed in everyones life, can provide this product worldwide, and you have a lot of money to put into social media, we really believe that paying for followers and likes is not the way to go and that this type of scheme does not guarantee you get followers that can give you ROI.
Linkedin:
- Spend – Spend on getting your personal profile to All Star status. Set up your company page and also take the time to standardise employees representing your brand. Once you are All Star, spend time in Groups establishing yourself as a credible authority in your niche. Do this by creating great content, posing appropriate thought provoking questions and NOT entering groups full of your peers. Be strategic about which groups you are participating in.
- Save – Save time by learning the intricacies of LinkedIn’s advertising platform. Whilst the CPC might be a bit higher, their video ads are extremely effective.
Google+:
- Spend – Spend on adwords to promote the great content you have on this channel. Social Signals are an important part of SEO now, so spend some advertising dollars sending traffic to your G+ destination. Make sure your awesome looking content provides great insight, and contains a clear CTA to convert visitor into subscriber.
- Save – Get your great looking content onto Google+ with appropriate hashtags and descriptions to save time getting your content ranked. Whilst they will tell you the algorithm doesn’t favour it’s own platforms, we’ve tested it and content pushed through your G+ account ranks faster than anything, even just a bit faster than YouTube content which is a very close 2nd.
Pinterest:
- Spend – Spend a specific amount of time researching content on this platform and creating specific boards for specific themes you would like to communicate. Make sure that you are pinning content from outside of the platform to these boards as well as from within. Spend the time to decide how this channel fits into your social media strategy. Don’t include just because you think you should, come up with an aligned business reason.
- Save – Save yourself hassle in the long run by investing in Pinterest quality content (Pinterest favours portrait and infographic sized images to get the most out of your Pinterest footprint). It’s a visual platform, grainy poor quality images won’t cut it on here and will devalue your brand equity.
And finally, to really make sure your money goes into the right channels, you should invest in Digital and Social Media Strategy sessions. Meeting with a professional in the field will help your company have a plan to implement and an understanding of the goals. Without a strategy, you are really just posting to your social media in the dark.