Many of the small and medium sized businesses I interact with still struggle with the notion that they should be investing in social media as a marketing strategy. Creating and sharing content of value to their customers, potential customers, and competitors runs against their grain .
In addition, the operational challenges are technically confronting to many, and the notion of having to write and produce the content necessary is normally a hill too far.
B2B, B2C, it makes little difference.
The immediate reaction of my B2B clients is that this social media stuff is for consumers, not serious businesses. However, it is the reality that those in businesses who make the purchase decisions are usually engaging, anonymously at first with potential suppliers during the early phases of the purchase cycle, and coming to the supplier only for the transaction. Not being in on the ‘conversation’ early is clearly a mistake.
It is becoming pretty clear that social media well used is a remarkably potent marketing tool, but challenging for those with modest resources, as this stuff is time consuming, technically challenging to measure properly as distinct from just measuring what is becoming known as ‘vanity measures’ just thinking they are measuring something useful.
There are a small number of very sensible strategies you can use.
Use it as a tool.
Social media is a marketing tool, and like any tool, the effectiveness is best measured by the outcomes rather than the use, so set out to measure the effectiveness by identifying the cause and effect links between the SM and your corporate objectives.
Understand the tool.
When you have a nail to be driven, a screwdriver is of little use. Same with social media, they are tools that can be used very effectively in the right circumstances, but are useless in the wrong place. Understanding how the tool works, and where it’s characteristics are best deployed is a fundamental part of the game.
Identify your key customers, and what they want out of it.
You simply have to be able to put yourself in the customers shoes, understand the value you can deliver from their perspective, and be prepared to be patient. My favourite metaphor for social media is to humanise it in a way everyone understands. You walk into a bar, and spot someone who just overwhelms you. If you just walk up and ask them to marry you, your chances are pretty slim. By contrast, introduce yourself, find shared interests, spend some time together, and you never know where it can lead. Social media is no different. To have a chance of the desired outcome, you need to do the spadework up front.
Measure, test & improve.
Be creative but deeply interrogative about the measures. (is interrogative even a word?) continuously test options, so you can continuously improve. Social media and digital generally have absolutely changed the practise of marketing. It has made it measurable and accountable, but there are limits. ‘Vanity measures’ such as number of friends, and likes are very poor measures. They are superficial and misleading offering no clue as to which activity is likely to generate a commercial outcome, they just look good on a piece of paper to a boss who does not understand. Understanding the difference between cause and effect and correlation is critical, observing correlation is terrific, but do not make the mistake of thinking it is always cause and effect and therefore measurable. A metaphor used by Gary Vaynerchuk is particularly potent here. He observes that everyone understand the value of good parenting, over time it has great outcomes for both, but trying to measure it in a month by month basis is stupid, it is a cumulative effect of many small things over a long period. There are some aspects of measuring digitally the return on SM that can really stuff us up.
Success with digital marketing, including the leveraging of the potential of social media is not easy, despite all the nonsense and get rich quick promises to the contrary.
Hopefully now you are at least a part way to answering the question.
