Word of mouth has long proven to be the best form of advertising.
In today’s landscape, word of mouth has been catapulted into the stratosphere by consumer’s use of social media platforms. These platforms are becoming increasing important for business to organically insert themselves into consumer’s lifestyle.
Here’s the riddle of the day: how social is your business? Before you dismiss the value of social media or think that it’s too complicated to execute, social media has its place just like any other tool in your marketing portfolio.
Businesses can gain many insights from deploying a social media strategy and there are analytics available to measure results. Similar to what has been learned on the display/video/mobile campaigns, social strategy can provide insights for sales teams and other marketing activities. It can also challenge some inherent notions that may be preconceived about consumer behavior.
At the end of the day, any business wants to be able to measure their impact. Plus, there are typically a few basic questions most businesses are seeking answers to:
- Being able to determine ROI for social marketing campaigns deployed
- Being able to determine what worked and optimizing said tactic to enhance results
- Being able to prove the value of social marketing and the analytics that become available
- Being able to interface social data with other data; such as sales, marketing, media, and/or other proprietary data, in order to provide a more robust customer experience
The key to developing the best social marketing strategy is setting up your process and key performance indicators (KPIs) upfront.
Then, as you go through the planning and execution phase you already have your point of measurement in place. After all, you want to spend your time optimizing with a clearly defined roadmap versus throwing a dart in the dark.
Social marketing is just another tool to reach your desired target audience. Resources should be available to review social analytics once tactics are executing in order to impact business potential.
As always, keep a watchful eye on your competitors and seek ways to usurp your competitor in order to drive incremental sales. In today’s competitive climate, there is no harm in stealing market share from your competitors.
Adele Lassere is a marketing/advertising consultant with 20+ years experience, freelance writer and author of “Elements of Buying” (self-help advertising guide), available at Amazon.com. Adele was listed as Black Enterprise’s 2011 Top Execs in Marketing & Advertising and Black Enterprise’s 2013 Top Women Executives in Advertising & Marketing. Contact: [email protected]
