By George Whitely, Stephan & Brady, Inc., www.stephanbrady.com
Thinking of dipping your toe into the social media pool? If so, you’re probably wondering how you can be assured your strategy will maximize your marketing budget with the greatest impact. Regardless of the medium you choose, you can experiment effectively before you dive into the deep end.
Test and measure, using short-term marketing approaches to yield long-term gains. Here are a few major considerations before you test a social media strategy:
1. Who is your target audience? As with any other marketing tool, it is important to keep in mind who you are trying to reach. Do you want to build connections with the media? Are you hoping to go directly to consumers? Or, are you speaking to businesses? All of your social media outreach efforts should help you connect with your target audience.
2. All social media tactics are not created equal. Your marketing team should create specific objectives for each channel based on your specific target audience. Do your research. Understand not only the differences in each outlet, but also your customers’ behavior in each medium.
3. Be sure that your marketing team fully understands how to analyze the results. Social media tracking is constantly evolving and different outlets require different metrics. Your marketing partners need to be able to review the results against current measurement standards – and your objectives.
Designate a portion of your budget for testing.
Understand that the results will dictate how to modify your strategy to either improve upon what you just tested, or move on and test the next logical option.
Why does this work? The great thing about social media is that you can monitor results immediately – think hours and days rather than weeks or months. And, you can test multiple approaches at the same time, microtargeting your audience to get immediate, real-time results.
Leverage this knowledge to develop a longer-term online strategy designed to reach your marketing goals.
Make sure you’re not using social media “just to use it.” Treat social media like you would a traditional marketing tactic and set measurable goals. Determine what you want the social media tactic to do: Drive traffic to your Web site? Improve your reputation? Provide coupons and promotions?
As an example, consider Facebook. The social networking giant is optimized for marketers to reach their targets via Facebook advertising and fan pages. Facebook Ads can promote products and services and drive traffic to your Web site or fan page. Ads are served up based on user demographics and personal preferences, making it easy to find your target. It’s easy to optimize based on performance by microtargeting multiple messages and creative. Facebook can be quite cost-effective—ad cost can be pay-per-click (CPC) or per impression (CPI). And fan pages are “free,” although, using them effectively does require investment of staff time or a marketing partner to effectively leverage your presence.
Regardless of where you choose to focus your marketing efforts, keep in mind that due to its ever-evolving nature, social media lends itself to affordable and convenient testing. Do your research – figure out where your target audience is gathering and participate in the conversation. If you find that the ROI is not meeting the goals that you had set, step back and tweak your approach to better suit your needs. Adopt a “let’s try it” approach to your social media efforts and you’ll be surprised at how quickly it will turn into “let’s go for it!”
