Here industry leaders from Avalara, Xerox and social media expert Ian Moyse share their tips as to what they use social media for.
What is social used for?
Social listening
The likes of Will Frei, Social Media Manager at Avalara uses social media to inform business strategy, by determining which brand messages are receiving the most attention and by which audiences.
Using demographic information can help you to understand and improve your targeting strategy. Analysing device usage helps identify the type of content that would look most desirable for set devices, e.g. mobile users may favour visual content that is quick and easy to consume. Something as simple as this can drastically increase your click through rate.
Ian Moyse, leading Cloud Influencer on Social Media, believes, ‘It’s not about ticking boxes it’s about producing content with the client in mind.’
#Tip: Use social to measure which content is receiving the best engagement to further develop and improve your social and content strategy.
Appealing to a wider audience
Andy Hill, Social Media Marketing Manager, for Xerox states, ‘Different formats and templates resonate with different audiences.’ Social media enables Xerox to reach a wider market so it is key that they understand the type of content that will appeal to their audience. To achieve this Andy recommends re-inventing and using content in multiple forms, such as within infographics, pictures and bite size blog posts to appeal to all users.
#Tip: Reinvent and create content in a multiple of forms to appeal to a wider audience.
Forging greater relationships
Social is also a great way to leverage relationships, whether that be with your target audience directly or with key advocates, such as employees, channel partners, customers and influencers. By developing these relationships you are increasing your social sharing capabilities, brand presence, as well as maintaining brand loyalty.
#Tip: Use social media to leverage greater relationships with advocates and your audience.
Driving traffic to website
Use social to increase organic traffic to your website, thus improving your SEO level and the visibility of your brand. Will from Avalara uses social paid advertising as an introductory method to their brand. This is then followed up with a refined engagement approach such as targeting through LinkedIn (after they have evaluated their demographics) to further appeal to this audience. This will reduce the cost of advertising expenditure. For this reason paid and organic social should not be treated separately, and should be integrated together at every opportunity.
#Tip: Use cheaper advertising networks, such as Facebook to introduce audiences to your brand, imbedding clickable links within, to drive traffic to your website. Later you can deploy a refined targeted strategy once you have a better understanding of customer’s demographics and needs.
This content is taken from a recent social media advocacy webinar, so if you’re interested in hearing the full version, where industry leaders from Microsoft and social media expert Zoe Sands also share their tips please click here to watch the recording.
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