The value that people and brands place on the number of “likes” or followers their content receives needs to be reconsidered.
Back when social media was still free of any marketing or advertisements, the number of followers or likes you mattered. However, nowadays with growth hacking tactics, 10 000 followers no longer carries any water. Why is that? You can have 10 000 followers on Facebook and your post receives only 10 “likes”.
This is not about wrapping your self-esteem up in social media “likes” but about understanding the difference between an engaged and valuable audience consuming your content and purchasing your goods and fans that do not care about your content.
Social media remains one of the most powerful and cost effective marketing platform for businesses. However, to get a slice of the pie in this digital economy, businesses need to understand the key basics about social media –not the hacks.
Below are what I’ve come to learn about social media marketing.
1. Quality over quantity
It is of no use to have 1 million fans that do not engage your content. It is of more valuable for your business to have 500 followers who respond to your content, that is, they take action that builds a relationship between you or converts into sale.
On the topic of purchasing followers, it may looks good on social media, but not in your financials. Take time to build an authentic and engaged community.
2. Attention is your best asset
Social media marketing is a game of attention, whether it is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, YouTube, etc. those who win are the ones who have the attention of their audience.
Attention is also how you can measure engagement among your audience.
The reason why most brands fail on social media is because their content is swallowed by the noise. For a customer to be compelled to watch a video or click on an ad, the piece of content you put up must be of value to them, and this goes back to taking time to build a relationship with your social media community.
Be authentic, consistent and provide valuable content. The name of the game is attention.
3. Choose the right platform
Social media marketing is grounded in content either written word, audio, video, pictures or mixture of them. Now with new social media sites popping out every day, the big question is; do you create a Facebook page or hop on whatever “the new Instagram” is today?
Understanding the difference between all these sites and the nature of the community on each platform is the first step to winning. It is important to remember that just because Facebook is working for brand A it doesn’t mean it will work for you. And just because podcasts work for Brand C it doesn’t mean it will work for you. Study the platforms and do not be afraid to test out what works.
