The Ten (Social Media Marketing) Commandments
1. Converse don’t broadcast. A social media marketing campaign is an online community, passionate about a brand, product or project. One of the most fundamental errors that social media marketers make is to poorly design their campaign so that it doesn’t encourage a dialogue. Many marketers generate all the social content themselves and don’t know how to inspire the 1% of content generating users to get involved. This error kills a campaign. Our research explores many ways to solve this in designing, managing, analysing & modifying a marketing campaign.
2. Use actual people to run your campaign. In our research, we have found another mistake that many marketers make: they don’t put enough funding into having human generated content. It is absolutely invaluable. Customers are highly sensitive to computer-generated responses and will reject it without hesitation. The most exciting benefit of social media is that it humanizes a brand by allowing companies to develop relationships with their customers. These relationships increase sales by creating a dialogue for consumers, a dialogue in which they have influence in the design of their product. For smaller organizations however, this is simply case of putting enough time & energy into responding to user content.
3. Know your HLNs & TMCs before you begin. HLNs are High-Level-Networkers & TMCs are Target-Market-Connections. These are dedicated customers turned volunteer brand advocates that will generate the majority of your content and carry your campaign. They are avid social media generators and already have a well established following. These users are everything and if you need to know them inside out as part of your initial research. For non-profit or independent organizations such as yourselves as media practitioners: if you have established a digital resume and online profile for yourself, this will mean researching your desired employers in the same manner.
4. Design for your content producers. Content producers make up that 1% of your audience but they absolutely create, manage, distribute and develop your campaign for you. Content producers are also known as volunteer brand advocates as I mentioned before. Designing your social media campaign for your brand advocates is to design to encourage conversing. Reward your volunteer brand advocates. What is in it for them? You need to make an irresistible offer that will promote that input and dialogue. Furthermore, when they produce content over time reward them to maintain the relationship and show them you are listening to them.
5. Chose & utilize your platforms appropriately.Choosing & utilizing your platforms appropriately is one the most undervalued aspects of social media marketing. If you research your HLNs and TMCs well, the appropriate platforms will become apparent. This commandment also involves keeping up-to-date with emerging trend social medias as (if appropriate) these tend to be helpful in the short term. Our research delves into all the different social media platforms in depth.
6. Engaging the customer sells your product better than selling your product. This may seem like a paradox but several of the most successful digital marketing campaigns have sworn by this commandment. The web is overflowing with advertisements that people at large do their best to avoid. If you can generate an interactive marketing campaign that engages your target audience in an effective way- this sells your product and increases sales far beyond traditional advertising. The more subtle your product is the better. In fact, if the product is so subliminal that it doesn’t appear like advertising at all people are far more likely to engage for longer and become more interested & involved in your campaign.
7. Customization is essential. The customization of your social platforms, profiles, blogs etc. is well known to be one of the most successful ways in which to engage your audience. As the majority of your users or customers only view your campaign at surface level: the design and layout must perfectly represent you campaign. This means allocating enough time & money into your graphic and web design. Another element to consider when it comes to customization is to create depth in your design: various levels to which various kinds of users can explore.
8. Mobile social media is invaluable. One of the most valuable aspects of the mobile device is the incredible immediacy when using social medias. This is fundamental in customizing your design: the campaign must have a here-and-now, single-click appeal for users to latch onto. The other valuable aspect of the mobile device is the satellite function. This was other significant finding from our research: if a social media campaign has a strong geographic foothold it actualizes the campaign into the physical world, which is an invaluable connection. Our research of course delves into this thoroughly.
9. Incorporate subtle data deriving & collecting. One of the many ways social media marketing saves larger organizations money is that it provides detailed information on its users or consumers via profiling. Whether these digital identities are accurate depictions of the real people or not is irrelevant, as their desiredidentity is just as valuable to sales. But more so, you need to derive information about how effective your campaign is: how long users stay on your site, what do they click on the most etc. This kind of information needs to be continuously collected and analyzed so that you can adapt your campaign for greater success. There are many different programs & systems that we discuss in our research that cover a range of budgets.
10. Have a damage control plan & an assessment system. It is necessary to have a damage control plan, information management systems if your campaign grows to a large scale, and an analytics system to sort this mass user information so that it is manageable. This section is a good example of the practical section of our research in that we have detailed, academic research into the very programs and methods employed to create an analytics system, policies and procedures for effective management.