In this series of blogs we will be sharing our thoughts on modern social business. We will look at how to create the groundwork on which to build strategic, diverse and communicative social campaigns.
Part one looks at the concept of a social foundation and why it is essential as a basis for social media marketing.
It’s been said so many times that content is king, and I would tend to agree but before that even enters the picture should we not be looking at the “who” rather than the “what” of what is building your social campaigns?
No matter what your business, what your story or what your reason for being on social media is (even if it is marketing) you’re still going to be one person talking to another. The real problem is finding the right people to talk to and the right people to do the talking.
Take B2B for instance, who do people want to talk to? The c-suite right? And will the c-suite have time for all that extra work? Of course not. So what happens? A few fumblings through the world of Twitter and LinkedIn before the excitement of the B2B social channels fizzle away.
So what’s the answer? We believe there are four key areas to help set up a sustainable and diverse social foundation:
Collaboration
It’s not just about you/your business; social platforms are not a way of shouting your message out. Get involved with the people making the most noise in your sector, read what they write, comment, favourite, retweet…do anything to get on their radar in a valuable way. These key influencers are big, they’re noisy, and they’re your audience so make them notice you through sharing what they have to say. It’s give and take after all.
Make it a community
It’s an obvious point but people want to talk to real people. If you have employees on social media, what is it that’s stopping them from being walking talking brand experts, brand advocates and your eyes and ears on the ground?
Create a story
No one wants to share boring content, no one wants to talk about boring subjects and subsequently no one wants to read boring content. Before sharing all that content that will offer the information your potential customers want let’s first build up a story, build up a reason for being on social.
Marketing automation goes some way to lead a customer through a journey of content but what if social added an additional layer of storytelling, pulling together and sharing the stories of the employees, the story of the c-suite, their expertise and how they arrived at where they are. What if we opened up businesses to share their own story and values? Suddenly we are giving the factual and boring content a home and background, suddenly people care, suddenly people are buying the brand no matter how dry it is.
Access all areas
Transparency has always been a key area of social media. It has the ability to open up a business allowing a potential customer or advocate to poke around and get on board with your brand, your products and your services at a deeper level. Large B2B companies in particular need buy in from customers at every level. The build up to a final purchase can take years for some businesses and at each level of the sales process social media offers a quick and easy inroad for research and decision-making.
The social approach that ties together these four social pillars means that strategies incorporate advocates and social partners with internal teams to provide a holistic view of the business across social channels.
In part two of The First Base Social Academy series we will look at the power of key influencers and the people who can really impact your social media strategy.
To find out more about a business focused social strategy contact First Base Communications here.
