Industry insight ❘

Does social mediawork for an SME? Gregory Bolle helps demystify the social media marketing approach for SMEs.

Social media is the new marketing trend followed by all companies in today’s market.

After the digital revolution, companies have invested further to communicate and exchange directly with their customers using online technologies.

Companies have different business agendas, but, social networking is rapidly becoming the most preferred Web 2.0 marketing tool for most of them. Today, you interact with two kinds of marketers: the ones that argue that social media platforms help them explore new marketing horizons with their customers and, the others, that pretend that it is a waste of time and energy for an organisation. The truth is that social media platforms are new and are still reinventing themselves constantly – which makes it tricky to create concrete business modeling process.

This article will endeavour to demystify the social networking marketing approach, providing some practical tips and explaining why social media works for SMEs. DefinitionTo define social networking marketing, let me start with a simple but significant analogy. One Dubai-based Iranian commodity trader shared this insight with me few months ago. He said: “Chinese traders are doing extremely well in the UAE – all over the world – not only because they have the best to offer, but more importantly because they have strong commitment and respect for any business relationship.” The art of relationship in the Chinese business culture is called “Guanxi.”

It seems that these Chinese traders are already well equipped to develop proper social media marketing strategies since they

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❘ Social media

have understood the two basic pillars of any social networking marketing solution namely, consistency and relationship. If you are running an SME, you must be already aware of the importance of maintaining consistency in your daily operations. A business needs to be consistent. Consistency is a good marketing idea, as it helps your business to grow. Even when you decide to explore social media marketing opportunities, consistency will continue to be a critical factor for success. In the same manner, networking, meetings and enhancing relationships with clients and prospective clients are vital to SMEs. They need to constantly reinvent and enrich their relations with their customers. Social media, then, becomes a great tool if you commit to respect this new digital form of interaction. In other words, social media marketing recognises the long-term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages. Ultimately, to develop an effective social media strategy, you will need to identify what BPG Maxus calls a “Shared Ideal,” a balanced combination of your business social objectives and your customers’ passions or needs. My best advice will be to rely on common sense. If you commit to both consistency and building relationships, then social media is no more complicated than any other medium.

Choose your platformTalking about common sense, how would you choose the best social media platform based on your pre-defined business objectives? Many social media experts are promoting Facebook as the ultimate social network. You need first to find out on which platform your message will be the best valued. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, among many

other tools are all great social media platforms, but all of them serve a particular purpose for your audience. Thus, you may avoid pure business discussions on Facebook or share private information on LinkedIn.

Create measurable goalsYour social media goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-sensitive (SMART). Sometimes, marketers believe that the digital world makes everything lightning fast. But that is a myth as far as social networking marketing is concerned, as you are trying to build a sustainable relationship with your audience. The idea is to create a network, and then to grow it progressively with relevant and interesting content for your audience.

Integrate online and offline Ideally, you need to convey your conventional communication and your new social media-style of communication. In other words, online and offline strategies must be used in the most efficient manner, based on the pre-selected key performance indicators of your communication campaign.

Measure ROI and ROEAs explained previously, your social media goals must be measurable. Two main indicators to consider are the Return on Insights (ROI) and Return on Engagement (ROE). ROI is less tangible than the ROE, as you will look at the business perspectives of your SME based on the feedback, and insights expressed by your audience. ROE is easier to measure as you will look

purely at the number of comments, followers, likes and retweets to estimate the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Does social media work for SME? The answer is yes. However, as explained previously, you should not consider the social media platform as a quick cash cow. Often, companies see social media as a sales channel itself. While it is proven to be effective, if used in the SMART framework, social networking marketing is even more powerful. If SMEs or marketers change their current mindset to start thinking that social media platforms are one of the most important strategic assets, they can develop a customer base, enrich conversation with clients, get insights instantly and thus, essentially gain an edge over your competition.

To conclude, if as an owner of an SME, you agree with the quote of the marketing guru Peter Drucker - the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer - then start using social networking marketing without anymore delay.

Gregory Bolle joins BPG Maxus as Vice President - Strategy, bringing with him several years of multi-industry experience in strategy and business development. In France, he founded the online B2B publication Sport Strategies and then became the managing director of Carat Sponsorship. Prior to BPG Maxus, he worked as a business advisor with Wunderman and the management firm Value Partners LLC. He has studied management at the University of Paris XI - Orsay and the Tanaka - Imperial College of London.