Once upon a time, I managed my clients’ social media campaigns, in addition to managing their traditional media campaigns and doing all the other one-stop-shop work of public relations management. I quickly powered up engagement (likes, shares, comments) by up to well over 1000%, and increased following by up to 8,000 new followers per month, per client.
Then the world of social media went bezerkazoid, with the rules - and therefore optimal campaign strategies - changing every five minutes. My brain was going to explode! In the interest of preserving my sanity, not to mention my brain cells, I started handing over social media campaign management to social media experts, whose sole job it is to stay on top of social media trends. To optimize each campaign, of course, I first established my client’s brand, message, and target audience - all of which informed the social media strategy throughout the campaign.
Because I know your head may be exploding too, I’m excited to share with you my recent interview with social media expert Cathy Tilton, who has these hot social media tips for you:
What are some of the most significant changes that have taken place in social media for businesses, over the past few years?
I think the biggest change in social media has been the collective shift to the "pay for play" model. In the early days of social media, everything was free. You could have a Twitter account and a Facebook Business page and do all kinds of promoting and pay nothing. But, just like all businesses, social media platforms need to make money. So algorithms changed, audiences got smarter, and ads became the way to promote your business. People were slow to adapt; free is great, we want things to be free! But paid marketing in social media has become a crucial component to digital marketing. It's been interesting to see how marketers, businesses, and social platforms adapt to a combination of content/paid ad strategy.
What do you think is the reason for these changes?
So many social media platforms started as VC backed ventures. The pressure to be cash-flow positive wasn't immediate; they had resources to grow and expand knowing there would still be money to keep working. They had the luxury of building something really cool that people loved, without the pressure of needed to make money right now. So as they got solid and more established, they then turned their attention to making real money off of their platforms. Paid advertising was the next logical place to grow.
As social media has become the norm, how have expectations changed regarding its incorporation into and performance for a business?
Social media has had some definite ups and downs since it first started gaining popularity. At first, there was a lot of buzzwords and bluster; people labeling themselves as social media "gurus" and "rockstars" that made a lot of big promises about return on investment (ROI) and engagement and "going viral." Businesses wanted that sweet free marketing and clamored to get a social media manager on board. But after a few years, the bubble burst. Businesses started asking for data to back up all of those claims, and wondering if their investment in social media was actually paying off. So social media managers started getting smarter about data and analytics. The focus has broadened and social media has started becoming more of a science.
What is and is not reasonable to expect to achieve on social media, with regards to marketing and conversions?
The thing about social media that a lot of people tend to forget is that social media is not in the bottom of the sales funnel; it's at the top. At its heart, social media is a lead generation tool. Conversions don't happen from social media. Because you aren't selling on social media. Whether you are trying to sell a book, or a pair of sunglasses, or get people on your email list or to sign up for your webinar, chances are, you are sending them to another place to do those things. Social media can generate the leads for you; it can send tons of traffic to those sales/sign up pages. But it's the job of those pages to convert the sale. As The Conversion Scientist, Brian Massey, always says a landing page/web page's job is to "keep the promise made in the ad, email or link that brings visitors to the page."
With so many social media sites available today, how is one to choose the best site for one’s business?
Go where your audience is. That's the simplest way to determine where a business should focus its efforts. A good social media manager will help you understand the demographics of who engages with certain platforms, and how that overlaps with your audience. And that includes niche social sites as well. For example, if I'm working with an author, you can bet I have suggested GoodReads as part of their social media strategy. It's a site full of authors and book lovers; that is the best place for them to be.
Posting on social media can be labor-intensive, especially when managing multiple sites. What are your suggestions for easing the burden – in particular for a solopreneur – while optimizing one’s presence on social media?
Think of social media platforms as pieces of toast. Your time is the butter. You only have a set amount of butter, so you want to make sure you don't make too many pieces of toast; otherwise you'll end up with dry, flavorless toast. And no one likes dry toast! It's a silly analogy but it's very true. If you want to have the best and most effective social media marketing, and you have finite time resources, them stick to a small number of platforms where your audience engages and where you feel comfortable. It is way better to have two social properties that are up-to-date with relevant content and information, than to have six properties that are haphazardly updated and neglected.
How worthwhile an investment are ad campaigns on social media?
Ad campaigns can be incredibly valuable and have an excellent payoff..... if and only if you set concrete goals. Running an ad to promote your website will feel like a failure if you don't set goals. When you run an ad, be very very very specific - with your audience, with the link you use, and with the goal you would like to achieve. Instead of saying, "I want people to come to my site" say, "I want 65 people to sign up for my newsletter this week." Run your ad, go over the data to see if it worked or not, then tweak and repeat. Approach it like a scientist; hypothesis, test, gather data, draw conclusions.
When is it advisable to create a private group on social media?
Private groups on Facebook are a lot like dating in real life: Consent is key. There was recently a huge wave of direct sales reps (JamBerry nails, LulaRoe, Younique, etc) that were creating private groups for their products and adding people without their permission. That is such a huge social media no-no. Creating a group is generally something that is done in response to a need. For example, if you have a group of neighborhood friends that want to work out together, you create a private group. That way, y'all can discuss times and locations, and ask questions and share sales on running shoes. But it's just for the interested party. The same applies to businesses. If your customers/audience wants a place to communicate and get information from you, then you create a private group. It doesn't matter if it's 10 people or 200 people; it there is a demand for it, then you do it. People will let you know when/if they want that kind of space. Wait for them to tell you.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about social media for businesses?
Social media is often the butt of a lot of marketing jokes. It got a bad rap in the early days of gurus and rockstars, and a lot of businesses took that to heart. But social media is good, and it can do a lot of great things for a business. Just be sure to choose a social media manager who is serious about goals, data, and testing, as well as content, engagement, and hashtags.