Does your brand really need a social media presence?
“You’ve got to be on social…” said every social media agency, ever. Cue eyerolls from plenty of people.
But actually – if you’re serious about building and maintaining market share – you’d be better to hold the eyerolls and take a long, hard look at what your brand’s social media presence looks like.
It blows my mind that in 2023 we’re still having conversations about whether social media is a ‘nice to have’ or ‘need to have’ marketing.
For the record: if you are a brand that does business with people, then social media is an important channel for you to include in your marketing mix.
That’s because, regardless of whether you’re a B2C, B2B, NFP or something else, the people you want to do business with are using social media.
And for those that claim ‘more and more people barely check their social media’ – sorry, but the stats disagree. In Aotearoa, time spent on social media increased 8% between 2022 and 2023*.
So yeah, social media is a legitimate channel. It’s also one of the most effective and cost-efficient marketing strategies you can employ – but only if you do it right.
How to do social media in a way that gets results:
With 2024 just around the corner, there will be plenty of marketers putting their minds to what next year’s plan looks like. As you do that, here’s our best advice for getting the most out of social media next year:
Take social media seriously, and invest accordingly:
When it comes to social media, you can’t be ‘half pregnant’. A toe in the water won’t work (and may actually do more harm than good). So, before you create that new Insta profile, think about how much you’re willing to invest.
FYI – A ‘proper’ investment in social media should include allowances for:
Time spent on strategy and planning (you’ll need a content framework for the year at a minimum, and most likely an ad strategy too).
Technical upskilling (the social landscape is forever changing, so time is needed to stay abreast of the latest updates).
Creation of visual content (photography, video, graphics etc) – this might include hiring an internal resource or budgeting for 3rd party help.
Execution (which includes posting, boosting, ads creation and community management at a minimum).
Click fees (and possibly influencer fees) – social media is a pay-to-play game, so you won’t get anywhere fast unless you invest in distribution.
Reporting and analysis – some of this can be automated, but you’ll need time, know-how and (possibly) 3rd party software to do it well.
Be strategic in your approach:
We can tell you right now, that the size of your social media ad spend will not be the defining factor of your brand’s success on social media.
Yes, you will need to invest in paid social tactics, BUT your content also has to be excellent to cut through; you have to be on the right channels, and you need to be actively engaging with your audiences on the daily, using the right tone of voice.
Before you commit to a strategy, make sure you look at what your competitors are doing. Aim to be different and carve out your own unique presence in order to truly win people’s attention and interest.
Also, don’t feel like you need to be on every social channel. Choose the 1 or 2 where you can best connect with your target audiences and focus on doing those well, instead of doing an average job on many.
Assume that there’s a whole lot you don’t know about social media marketing:
One of our biggest bug bears is people who think they know everything there is to know about social media, and therefore don’t need any advice or intel.
As a social media agency with 10 years’ experience, we’re learning new stuff about social media every single week. That’s because channel algorithms, formats, ad strategies and more are constantly changing.
If you don’t want to hire a 3rd party agency to help you, then don’t. But at least invest in bringing an expert into your team (or be prepared to spend a lot of hours upskilling).
Think about how you’re going to track and measure your efforts:
There is so much cynicism about social ROI – the root of much of this that so many people don’t invest time and energy into reporting and analysis.
By creating a proper KPI dashboard, you can establish baselines for performance, track spend and cost per conversion, and analyse which of your social media strategies are working most effectively. This is how you improve your social media marketing to a point where it generate solid ROI and becomes a true brand asset.
There’s a lot to think about!
But, there’s also a lot to be gained by investing in the right ways on social media.
If you need help figuring out how to go about getting the most out of social media for your brand, objectives and budget, then talk to us.
We’re a friendly, down-to-earth team of social media experts, who can help you. We’ve worked with every kind of scenario - from big B2C brands with massive ad budgets, to B2B brands trying to figure out where social might fit into their marketing equation, to start-ups with tight budgets that mean digital is the only advertising option they can really afford.
Regardless of which category you fall into, we can help you make your social media fly.