As social media grows in popularity and millions of users adopt new ways to share information, many businesses need to build strategies to enhance their presence and brand in the social media space. Many companies have established websites, and might even be using social media tools, but often times there is no business strategy behind them. It’s not too late to get started.
There are three basic components in developing a business strategy: brand messaging, customer focus, and duration of a message. It is important to integrate each of these areas with your business and marketing strategies to develop a good online relationship with your customers. Below are some examples of each of the components which exemplify the point.
1) Brand Messaging – This has to do with what you want your audience to know about your business. Whole Foods does a great job of representing their brand through their social media presence. Their social media strategy includes having a presence with their blog, Twitter and on Facebook. They consistently relay messaging and information that supports their mission and company values. Their brand message promotes healthy living, organic foods, and high quality products. Through social media outlets, they communicate a brand that represents all of these messages by providing quality recipes, promotions for their products and creative ideas to help engage with their customers. Consistency is the key for maintaining a good brand message, and Whole Foods does it right.
2) Customer Focus – The key here is understanding who your customer is and how you can communicate with them via social media. With social media, and with a local brand, it’s important to know your audience and make sure the messaging is relevant to them. An example of a local Portland, Oregon brand that does a good job of this is the Portland Trailblazers Basketball website. While they have a large national fan base, their target market for ticket sales is in the Portland area. Their social media presence on Facebook does a great job of offering promotions and providing team news to create a buzz around the team.
3) Length and Relevance of Message – This is very important as it will reflect how you are perceived in the social media arena. It’s important that the message be “brief” and “relevant” to keep your audience engaged. If the end user does not gain anything from your message they will not return, so be sure you are adding value with each communication. A good example of this is the Adidas World Cup Campaign. They spent a considerable amount of their event marketing budget on creating a custom Facebook site. The unique rich content delivered to the online social media audience echoed the current brand and boosted awareness and positioning in the social media arena. They didn’t simply use social media to point users to the company website, they used it to promote within the social media space and showcase their brand with a unified strategy. Each social media tool can support defined online goals and weaving prioritized and measurable goals through all the online tools is key for success since different audiences have different expectations.
In summary, the key is to not only create content but to become a destination for information. By leveraging social media tools you not only support your brand and marketing goals in multiple arenas but augment communication channels to reach multiple customer demographics.
