Download - Make your brand shine with a social media strategy

MAKE YOUR BRAND SHINE WITH A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

eTailing India Thought Corner

Social media marketing is always an integral part of any digital campaign. Though conceptually simple, social media is one of the most misunderstood marketing platforms. A brand needs to come out from face-value marketing to data-driven and conversion-based marketing. As elusive as it may sound, it isn’t improbable.

Let’s go through a case-study which carves a way for an effective social media strategy.

Level 1: Awareness

Social media is heaved with continuous information and conversation. So, promotional activity often remains unnoticed and that too fleeting.

Therefore, at the awareness stage – avoid self-promotional content. Instead, ingratiate your brand with your new audience. Offer them value without

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asking anything except a moment of their attention. We ran a competition on the client’s best-selling product, an entry-level 3D printer.

You can run a competition which also aligns with your brand offering. Don’t give away socks if you are selling soaps! You can create custom Facebook advertising audiences.

To support the awareness stage, research and source content from around the web. The content should relate to and resonate with your product offering, providing information and entertainment value.

It should serve as a common value between the brand and the audience, a type of content will remain on social media indefinitely.

Level 2: Demand

We go a step ahead where we intend to engage people as a way of driving traffic to our website. We start introducing little branded content in the social media feed.

To tap in to this audience data,

You can use customer emails uploaded to Facebook. Create remarketing audiences. Then build lookalikes audiences off the back of this

data.

Gradually promote branded content to these audiences by spending a modest amount paid marketing. The audience who reads it is already


relevant and when they investigate the brand could see lots of useful content gathered in Level 1 to reinforce brand value.

If done correctly, a small budget slither your sail much further. The traffic will also help to populate additional remarketing lists which can be used further on.

Level 3: Transactions

Until now we have built momentum with impressions and engagement, and direct visits to the website. Now it’s time for direct product promotion but with a cautious approach.

Offer a “try before you buy” approach, because product trials work. They are low risk and of low commitment.

For instance, a client offered a printing hub facility where customers can upload their own design; it gets printed and sent back in a few days of time. Just 3 months later, Facebook was driving direct sales and also assisting with sales through remarketing and return visits.

But, way to go ahead!

Level 4: Adoption

Here, make existing fans and customers feel good about following your brand. It increases brand loyalty and increases your promotional power by being able to show off a filtered audience.


Put polls and place feedback mechanism in place, offer after-sales support via chat. For instance, the release of a new logo and branding offers a prime opportunity to ask the newly built audience for their opinion – a simple but an effective tactic. You could see an increase in positive engagement across social posts and updates.

Adoption works in tandem and comes in full-circle on the initial awareness phase. Where awareness is driving new eyeballs to you, adoption is about keeping and delighting the audience you’ve built until now. It is very important to not get overzealous with your promotional posts. Work on a mutable target by committing no more than 20% branded, directly promotional posts.

This way, people won’t tire your brand and will see you as part of the community. Your audience will allow you to push more promotional pieces to them.

Level 5: Advocacy

It is one of the hardest-won elements of a social media marketing strategy. It leads you to the power of recommendations and positive word of mouth.

When all the 5 levels align, you will inspire some of your audience to engage beyond the norm. They will go out of their way to spread your brand’s message and even more frequently. This is what creates a


loyal followers club which advocates brand identity. This, in turn influences others.

Social Media Marketing Map

Image courtesy: https://goo.gl/mPK6MJ


Download - Make your brand shine with a social media strategy

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