How to Get the Most ROI from Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Obtaining an ROI from social media is incredibly important for any business investing time and money into their social media presence. When a company or business invests in social media they are hoping to create a pay off in doing so. In order to do this; however, there are certain tactics more equip to assist in growth than others. Read on to discover how to get the most ROI from your social media campaign.

KPI

Establishing what your key performance indicators (KPI) are is essential to maximizing ROI for your business. These indicators highlight what is working in your social media campaigns and what is hindering them. As a business, you want to produce results, but unless you know your KPI there is virtually no way to distinguish these metrics.

Understanding your Insights

No matter what platform you choose to launch a social media campaign on, you must first understand how each social network performs. For example, Facebook insights are very different than Instagram ones. In order to cater to your brand’s audience, you must choose the platform that suits your campaign the best. For instance, Facebook metrics include engagement, impressions, organic likes, page likes, paid likes, post reach, reactions, and unlikes. On the other hand, Instagram focuses on impressions, reach, website clicks, profile visits, post likes, post comments, posts saved, and follows. If your brand was attempting to promote a shirt, for instance, since it is a visual-based campaign it should be done on Instagram. However, if the campaign is about a sale or deal, it would most likely do better on Facebook.

Define what is Important

Defining what is important to your brand, on social media, is crucial for boosting your ROI for your targeted audience. The reasoning behind this is that if you determine what your brand is focused on, you can better serve your customers. For instance, if your brand is predominantly concentrated on customer service, you may want to focus on mentions and response times. By raising your brand’s awareness on social media, you can also maximize the number of followers you gain and the engagement you receive.

Creating ROI from social media is essential for any brand putting time, and money, towards their social media presence. There are many ways to create ROI. However, the bottom line is, know your brand, know your audience, and research your insights. If all of these things are done thoroughly, your brand should be able to see improvement.

How to Use Twitter Engagement to Grow Your Brand

Twitter is one of those social media platforms that many people overlook when it comes to it being a marketing agency and growing a business or brand. Many people assume Twitter is just for rants, memes, and political content. Although all of that is prominent on Twitter, there are so many ways that Twitter could be used as your own marketing agency to expand the audience of your business.

Engage With Your Audience On Another Platform

Although Twitter does not have as many users as Facebook or Instagram, there are over 336 million users to market your good/service to. There are many people who are more active on Twitter than on other social media platforms. Not promoting your brand on one of the world’s biggest, most-popular social media sites is a lost chance at gaining new audience members. People love Twitter because you can post anything on there, whether it be serious news or a picture of someone’s dog, and people will respond. It’s just another way to get your name out there on something other than your website, advertisements, Instagram, Facebook, or Yelp.

Reach Out To Your Audience Quickly And Efficiently

 

With Twitter’s low character count for tweets and their feed layout make it easy to get your word out there in a short and sweet way. Keep it simple and to the point. When scrolling through a social media app people do not want to see long paragraphs advertising a brand. They want to see something short and to the point. Twitter makes it possible to get your word out fast and simple, just like it should be.

 

Chat With Customers Directly

What Twitter does that is very unique is it allows people to directly reply to a tweet or comment and have it be separate from the original tweet. It becomes another conversation between you, the poster of the original tweet, and the person that comments or replies. Businesses are able to engage directly with their customers to answer any questions that may come up. Wendy’s does a great job at responding to their customers on their Twitter page, and they even add some comedy to their replies. By replying to customers directly it allows for you to talk one-on-one with a customer and having your replies be shown to everyone.

Build Your Reputation and SEO

Another great thing about using Twitter as another marketing agency is that it can build a brand’s reputation and boost its SEO. As mentioned earlier Twitter has over 300 million users and some of these users may not have other social media platforms. This is an easy way to gain a new audience, no matter the size. Many users also link website URLs to their tweets which can boost the SEO of that brand’s website. The more people linking your site, the more fans and the greater SEO you can have.

 

 

Live Chat With Customers/Fans

Customers are always asking questions and wondering how things get done in certain businesses. On Twitter there’s a feature called Live Chat that allows for a host and the participants to chat at a certain time on the topic of their choosing. This allows for questions being answered quickly in a certain time frame. Customers are able to ask any and as many questions as they want about the topic and they’re left with answers to all of their questions.

Twitter as another social media marketing agency can help grow a brand/business. It’s just another way to gain a greater audience and get your business’ name out there. Everyone loves Twitter, and you will too when you see the results it produces for your company.

How To Effectively Use Hashtags on Facebook for Your Business

Although it’s more common on Instagram and Twitter, it is very important not to disregard Facebook Hashtags. Hashtags were introduced to Facebook in early 2015, but no details were touched on. Hashtags on Facebook are very open-ended, and here we’re going to help figure out the most effective uses of Facebook hashtagging.

What Works

Studies have been done to show what helps with engagement versus what hurts engagement numbers. When using hashtags in Facebook posts, it’s always important to note that, unlike Instagram or Twitter, more hashtags does not mean more engagement. Quality over quantity is key to using hashtags on Facebook. A post truly only needs one or two hashtags that are relevant to the post. For example, if a business were to post for National Dance Day, they could use the hashtags #NationalDanceDay and #dance, and that would be perfectly fine. Very long or too many hashtags can often be very distracting, so it’s in a business’ best interest to keep it simple.

Facebook As Another Marketing Platform

Many businesses, brands, and companies underestimate Facebook as a marketing platform. Facebook has over two billion active users on it, making it the best one to market on. With that many people on one platform, companies can gain a greater target audience. They can use photos, emojis, tags, locations, and hashtags to help with gaining more of an audience. Using Facebook, it’s 2 billion potential audience members, and its hashtags will ultimately help a business rather than hurt it.

 

Search Using Hashtags

Using hashtags to search for things on Facebook is another way to use them for your company’s benefit. Searching for something by its hashtag could help find different content and more users interested in that specific hashtag. The most effective way to search for a hashtag on Facebook, surprisingly, is not in the Facebook search bar, but through the Google search bar. Let’s say you want to search #dogs, searching facebook.com/hashtag/dogs will give you the most relevant posts towards your hashtag.


Other Helpful Hints

There are many other little tips and tricks to help you make the most of Facebook Hashtagging. Using websites such as Facebook Analytics for reports and analytics and hashtagify.me for finding the most popular and beneficial hashtags could, even in the slightest bit, help with engagements and interactions. Scheduling and fine-tuning every single post will help your posts, and hashtags, look cleaner, more organized, and well thought out.

Facebook hashtags have always been around, and so many people overlook them. Using hashtags on Facebook could assist in taking a company’s profile to the next level regarding more consumers, engagement, and getting their name out there.

 

 

The Power of 24/7 Social Media Management for a National Brand

No matter the brand, business, or company, consumers are always going to have something to say. Whether good or bad there’s always something to be said and most of it is said through social media. Social media plays a huge role for many brands in the 21st century and is the reason that 24/7 Social Media Management is crucial to the success of any business. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, and LinkedIn are only a few social media platforms that many companies use to get their brand out there as well as communicate directly with their customers. Here are just some of the ways that 24/7 Social Media Management can improve a brand:

Comprehension

Understanding who your target audience is and how they use social media to directly interact with the brand is key. Knowing their language and what words people use to describe your brand can easily help with gaining more insight on how it can improve. If there is no negativity towards your brand, product, company, etc. then keep doing what you’re doing. If you see that your audience starts to respond negatively towards something related to your brand, this gives your company the opportunity to listen, see what went wrong, and fix it.

Understanding the Current Trends

With constant eyes on social media it makes it much easier for a company to know exactly what’s trending at certain times. Trends such as hashtags and locations tags are always changing and with 24/7 Social Media Management, a brand should always know exactly what to add to their posts to keep up with the times and their audience. 24/7 Social Media Surveillance can also help with the aesthetics of a brands social media profile. Seeing what others do and how other profiles are changing can inspire a brand, or their social media marketing agency, to do the same.

Knowing How to Appeal to Your Audience

Recognizing exactly how to approach your audience is a key factor in the success of a business and its social media platforms. Most consumers, when wanting to contact a company, go straight to social media because of the convenience. Many people do check their social media accounts more often than their email accounts, so having a company that is on top of their game is ideal for consumer happiness. A business needs to seem approachable. Customers never want rude replies if they have a question. They want to know that their questions will, one, be answered as quickly as possible and, two, be answered in the nicest way possible. Consumers want a company that’s reliable, easy to connect with, and very reputable.

Interaction

Knowing how to interact with an audience useful but interacting with them is what’s truly important. People are always interacting with brands on social media, whether it be tagging them in posts, liking their posts, retweeting posts, or mentioning in comments or stories. Many businesses, such as Wendy’s and Target, are always replying to customer comments and people love that. I, for one, would

be very happy if I commented on my favorite brand’s post and got a reply. Not only does this help businesses gain consumers, but it helps keep them up-to-date on the products or services the business is offering. This also helps to see who the business’ top advocates (and maybe future brand ambassadors) are.

Social Media Customer Care

Social Media allows a business to take that extra step in helping an upset or angry customer. Social Media allows for quicker, more efficient replies to be made. Customer service and care are both critical in determining whether consumers are going to like the business or not. The businesses, and its employees, that are willing to do more for less are the ones that are going to get ahead when it comes to audience and customers. Consumers know when employees are trying to help them to the best of their abilities or when they just want to get the problem resolved fast and without care. Replying fast, being patient, and taking extra steps to solve unresolved issues are what can take a brand’s customer care to the next level, thus improving their reputation with consumer.

Many underestimate the power of a brand having constant social media surveillance. Social media brings a business closer to its customers and with that constant watch, a brand could get their name and reputation out there to attract a greater target audience. Using social media for more than just posting will improve not only a brand’s social media impressions, but also the relationship they build with their customers. Social media is extremely prevalent in our society, so why not use it to your company’s advantage?

 

 

7 Social Media Updates to Stay on Top of This Summer

Social media is constantly evolving to become more effective and increasingly interconnected. At the recent F8 conference, hosted by all of the social media power-houses, many social media updates and changes were announced to be on the horizon in the very near future.  Rapid change can be difficult to adapt to; however, there is no need to stress over adaptations to your favorite platforms. Bright Age Digital Creative Agency is a social media marketing agency that is here to help. Read on to find out seven social media updates to stay on top of this summer.

IGTV

IGTV is a new feature on the app Instagram that allows users to post hour-long content. In a sense, it is almost a merger between Instagram and YouTube. However, this development should prove to be very interesting due to the fact that if you follow an individual, you are automatically subscribed to their IGTV channel. This feature looks extremely promising for influencers and brands alike, looking to share longer videos promoting their content. 

@ Mention Stories on Instagram

Also new to Instagram is the “@ mention sticker” for Instagram stories. This feature allows users to repost stories that they were tagged in on their own accounts. This feature has already proven to be a phenomenal resource for brands and businesses, which can now highlight their satisfied customers with ease. Individuals no longer need to take low-quality screenshots to highlight the communities’ involvement with their brand.

“Shoppable” Tags on Instagram

Additionally, Instagram recently introduced “shoppable” tags on Stories. These are tags that when clicked will take the viewer to the page of the product highlighted and allow them to shop.  These tags have been seen before on Instagram posts; however, this is the first time they have been accessible from Stories. Instagram has been heavily promoting their story feature in recent updates of the app, so it is not surprising that the bag icon has made its way into the Story, as well.

Instagram Question Sticker

Again, Instagram is emphasizing its Story feature by introducing a new polling option.  The question sticker allows community members to ask questions and receive replies, which can be showcased in a new Story post. This new feature was created to increase activity and accessibility to one another, on the app. It is predicted to be incredibly useful to brands and companies, because of its capability to provide genuine engagement.

AR Facebook Ads

Augmented reality is here, and the future of online shopping will never be the same. Facebook is looking to expand its virtual reality tool-set beyond messenger. Facebook is projecting its plans for implementing a new ad style, which includes virtual reality. This would allow users to view themselves wearing various products, makeup, etc.  Facebook is currently testing the new ad style, so look out for AR ads in your Facebook feed this summer.

Snooze Keywords on Facebook

Facebook is now implementing a new feature called, “snooze keyword” which allows users to mute keywords for thirty days. This is being enabled to prevent spoiler’s regarding media or events. It is predicted to minimize bullying and trolling on the forum, although it is not particularly aimed to do so. After all, keywords can only be blocked for thirty days.

LinkedIn Translation Tools

While other social media platforms have had translation options for quite some time, LinkedIn has finally jumped on the bandwagon. The business networking forum has added a translation feature that can “decode” over sixty languages. This is a huge step for the app. allowing international businesses and individuals to connect with ease is a massive step in the direction of, seamless, international business connection.

 

Social Media has been experiencing many exciting, and progressive changes this summer. There are new tools coming out, seemingly, every day. These are merely a handful of updates to your favorite platforms; there are many more on the horizon.  Although social media updates can be difficult to keep track of, they are designed to make your social media use more enjoyable, and efficient. A social media marketing agency can also assist in adapting to these updates.

 

 

 

 

The Importance of Community Management for Any Brand or Business

It’s no secret that social media plays an essential part in any brand or business. Online communities exist for almost every imaginable industry, and often, members of these communities will consult a business’ social media page as a deciding factor before completing a purchase.

For companies that actively regulate and use their social media, more opportunities will present itself to connect and interact with customers (and potential customers) at a more personable and effective level. Managing these communities on social media can be crucial to the long-term success of your business, and with the rise of mobile applications like Yelp, Facebook, and Instagram; the ability to see and respond to customer concerns is made increasingly available. It’s no surprise that, according to Sprout Social, the top choice for receiving customer care is now through social media.

Managing these pockets of communities, however, can be time-consuming and a full-time job. For this, you can consult a company for community management who can best provide you with the help you need. As this role becomes readily intertwined into the daily routine of your business or brand, the following benefits of community management will come to fruition.

Brand Presence

Community managers work as your brand advocates, introducing your product/service into new corners of the umbrella industry. So, as you become more active online through community management, your brand presence will also improve. A company for community management achieves this by regularly following up with your social contacts and maintaining those relationships, but also focusing on acquiring new relationships by reaching out to new networks and community niches. Doing so increases the number of potential customers for your business, as your brand presence and reach spreads out further into different social bubbles. Regular interaction from a community manager with existing social contacts and potential customers may even earn you the backing of social media influencers as earned media. With a growing brand presence, you may also see increases in a level of engagement from your consumers.

Better Reputation

As your brand presence grows and engagement increases, keep in mind that it’s only becoming easier to access and see discontent with and complaints about a brand’s service/product through social media as customers turn to applications like Yelp to rate their experience. By being immediately reactive to strong opinions, positive or negative, a company for community management will build a better reputation for your brand as well as see a closer relationship to your customers while you grow within their communities. If your business or brand is consistently interacting with your communities by answering complaints or reaching out to influencers, you’re simultaneously fortifying your relationships with your customers and building brand loyalty. In investing in community management, brands develop a trustworthy and customer-oriented image.

Receive Feedback

As consumers engage more with your community manager, a company for community management will be able to give your business feedback on how your brand is perceived in the minds of the consumers. Community management also can moderate the success of a brand’s digital presence based off the feedback received.  By understanding customer complaints and compliments, your business can make more strategical moves.

Rise in Sales and Web Traffic

The end goal to community management for most is to increase web traffic and see a rise in sales. As community management discover new niches to target, push brand presence farther, and receive feedback on the success of your online profiles, a business can actively adapt to consumer trends and see a rise in sales and website traffic.

Without community management, your business risks losing a customer to a competitor or cultivating bad PR due to lack of communication. Sprout Social states that expected response time over social media is from 0-4 hours, but in reality, response time can take up to 10 hours. With community management, however, your business can be proactive when dealing with your consumers digitally, learning more about the fabric of your business’ industry, learning how to attract new customers, and building a loyal relationship with your current customers.

7 Updates to Stay on Top of Your Social Media Marketing

To remain relevant to online communities, your social media marketing efforts must actively adapt and respond to social media updates. Social media is a constantly changing playing field, where new platforms seem to emerge every day, while familiar platforms like Facebook or Snapchat grow and improve. Here are seven updates to be aware of when helping your business or brand stay on top of social media marketing efforts.

Augmented Reality (AR)

We see technology opening new doors left and right, and augmented reality is one such up and coming trend for social media marketers to take advantage of. For instance, AR has equipped Snapchat with the technology to release Shoppable AR. This new feature offers advertisers the opportunity to sell their products through sponsored lenses at a more advanced level. A lens-based advertising, Shoppable AR allows Snapchat users to download, buy, or view a video directly from a Snapchat face filter on the in-app browser.

Taking Shoppable AR a step further, Snapchat will also roll out with AR menus. By scanning a Snapcode, customers will be able to use this AR menu feature to see a virtual copy of their meal before even ordering it. Bareburger is one of the first clever restaurants to implement the use of Snapchat’s AR menu, to connect with the “foodie” community that often uses social media as a platform to share pictures of their meals.

Snapchat isn’t the only social media platform to test the waters with AR features, however, as Facebook Stories also offers an AR drawing tool to its users.

Augmented Reality is a groundbreaking technology predicted to play a significant part in the changes social media marketing will have to embrace in this year, as well as the years to come.

Improving User Experience

Another major update within the social media community is the new initiative to improve user experience across multiple platforms. As this new goal becomes more of a priority to social media, social media marketing will become directly affected. This is seen most prominently with Facebook’s recent algorithm changes, as Facebook now reduces the reach of posts by publishers and brands to emphasize and focus more on content generated by friends and family. With this shift, many companies now worry how this will affect their online viewership, specifically with their Facebook pages that already see a decrease in reach.

Twitter also seeks to improve the user experience by cracking down on bots and strictly limiting how users can automate tweets from multiple accounts at once. By doing so, Twitter’s hope is to add some transparency and truth in an online world riddled with spam and political propaganda bots that cultivate distrust amongst the Twitter community. Matching Facebook’s new initiative, Twitter will also limit the amount of news shown to its users compared to their real-life connections.

Instagram is improving user experience by aiding users in copyright issues through the transition of Rights Manager from Facebook to Instagram, which will aid users in protecting their content.

Facebook Updates

Although Facebook’s algorithm changes have reduced the reach of company pages, Facebook has released QR codes as an easier way to connect users to specific accounts. Page managers can tailor a code to automatically like the page, check-in, or connect the user to a recommendation or review page.

Facebook is also releasing Facebook Video Premiere, as an expansion of the extremely successful live streaming feature. Video Premiere will boost engagement by allowing users to post pre-recorded content in the context of Facebook Live. Premiere will work similarly to Live Streaming and seek to achieve similar engagement rates; the only difference in that the videos are pre-recorded. Facebook Live Streaming generates six times more interactions than regular video posts, and with Facebook Video Premiere, the hope is that this interaction level will stay on the rise.

Instagram Updates

A recent update to the Instagram user interface is the “recommended posts” intertwined with the natural flow of your feed. This recommended feature represents a great opportunity for social media marketing. Following hashtags, and thus the community that uses the hashtag is also a new feature Instagram offers.

Instagram has also announced plans to include Carousel Ads as a new ad format in Instagram Stories. Rather than a single photo or video, a brand advertising through Instagram stories can include up to three! With new ad formats released by Instagram, there is now more variety in social media marketing on the Instagram platform to connect with your brand’s niche communities. According to Statista, the monthly active users of Instagram Stories each month impressively overtakes the monthly active users of Snapchat.

Twitter Updates

The most recent Twitter updates are the expanded character count for tweets and threaded posts. Twitter also began highlighting content as well, such as sports games. Earlier this year rumors also unfolded about Twitter becoming more video-friendly like Snapchat. Though this is still unconfirmed, it is possible that with a new feature centered around videos, Twitter will also allow advertisers to promote and create sponsored content in a new way.

The newest development, however, is Twitter’s reported rise in profitability and gain in users once more. With this sudden and recent growth, Twitter is in a position of scrutiny by the public, which may result in possible continued social media updates.

Snapchat Updates

Snapchat’s most relevant and recent update is their new user interface. This brought a lot of discontent from the users, even bringing about a petition to return the previous design of Snapchat back into the spotlight. The main difference, which many argued to be hard to navigate, is the separation of content of friends, to celebrities and promoted material. It is still unknown whether Snapchat will bring back their old design, keep the new design, or implement a hybrid.

Up and Coming Social Media Platforms

Amino Apps targets a younger Generation Z audience looking to share in the community. The average user range for Amino Apps is 14-24, which is a more focused age range compared to that of Tumblr or Instagram. Known as a cross between Tumblr and Reddit, Amino Apps creates communities for a variety of interests ranging from Pokémon to anime to K-pop. Amino Apps is most recently introducing Avatar Chat, where users can chat using animated avatars.

 

 

A second up and coming social media platform is Vero True Social. Vero True Social’s mission is to provide an honest platform, free from advertising and data mining. Although brands can still own a profile and use User Generated Content or Influencer Marketing, brands cannot pay for advertising on the Vero interface. Products can be sold, although Vero will collect a commission. Vero has gained a significant amount of traction recently, however, it is still unclear whether it will become as widespread as Instagram or Snapchat. Is what Vero offers, a social experience free of advertisements, worth its price?

These seven updates have already brought about significant change to the social media world, affecting the tactics with which we can implement social media marketing. By ensuring that your brand keeps track of these social media updates even beyond just these seven, you can stay ahead of the game or even predict what the next big move is in the social media marketing industry.

How to Increase Website Traffic Through Social Media

Increasing Social Media website traffic is typically a key goal for any company that implements a social media marketing strategy. Below are a few ways your company can increase website traffic through various social media platforms.

Improve Your SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a tool that companies must use to increase visibility, generate online traffic, strengthen brand recognition, and generate more sales/leads. Improving your company’s SEO with consistent keywords will increase its visibility in relevant Google searches. Inbound links improve your company’s SEO by referring viewers directly to your company website and social media profiles. With the help of a social media agency, your company can improve its SEO through monitoring and using consistent keywords and inbound links in its online content.

Make Your URL Visible in Your Bio: Displaying the link to your company website on all social media profiles looks more professional and legitimate. In displaying the link, your company will make it easy for viewers to locate and visit the site any time they are on one of your social media profiles. The more accessible your website is, the more likely it is for viewers to visit. This simple, yet effective tactic will likely increase social media website traffic over time.

Share Your Posts on All Social Media Platforms: When your company posts new content, they should share it on all social media platforms to reach a broad audience and maintain a consistent online presence. HootSuite and other social media software allows a business to easily plan and share its posts on all social media platforms. It is important that you optimize the content for each social media platform. For example, on LinkedIn an optimal post is 25 words long and is paired with a horizontal photo, while on Facebook videos perform very well and there is not a character limit. With the help of a social media agency, your company can gain knowledge and expertise regarding the content and verbiage to use on any given social media platform.

 

Refer People to Your Site: Your company can increase social media website traffic by directing people back to the website for the answer to their question. For example, if someone tweets at your company to see how much your product/service is, you can simply reply on Twitter with a link to your website’s product/service page and let them know that they can find the price other information there. This will both increase website traffic and provide the answer to current and potential questions regarding your business’ product/services. With the help of a social media agency, your company can implement community management practices by providing unique answers to questions regarding your product, where you are located, who to contact, etc. that will direct users back to your website.

Use Call to Action and Social Media Share Buttons: Many social media platforms offer users the option to “shop now” or “view now”. These Call to Actions (CTA) buttons direct users to your company website without the usual hassle of clicking on your profile, looking in the bio, and then clicking on the link to your website. CTA buttons eliminate any extra work for users, and this increased accessibility subsequently increases social media website traffic. Social media share buttons are another easy-to-use tool that allows users to share your company’s content to any social media platform. Although this will not directly increase website traffic, your content will reach a broader audience who can click on their friend’s shared link, and then be instantly directed to the content on your website.

Share Your Posts Multiple Times: Many viewers may have missed or forgotten about content that you posted in the past due to the overwhelming amount of content shared and read on social media. Sharing your company’s posts multiple times on the various social media platforms will increase website traffic. Users may reject redundant posts that are shared too frequently, so mixing up the caption on your re-posts is a necessity. To receive the desired reaction from viewers, your company could begin with sharing the original post, then share the post while asking users a question a few days later, and, finally, repost it one more time and pair it with a cited a fact/statistic a few weeks later. Spacing out and limiting the frequency of repeat posts, along with using new and creative verbiage will increase social media website traffic over time.

How Social Media Strategy Varies by Business and Industry

Creating and implementing social media strategy is important – but not all strategies are created equal. Every business is unique, so digital marketing agencies approach each social media strategy differently depending on the client’s specific industry or business. By analyzing how a company operates, what its goals are, and who its competitors are within the industry, a digital marketing agency can fine-tune and customize your social media strategy to better achieve company objectives. Through this careful evaluation, you can work towards increasing your business’ social media ROI (return on investment).

In the B2C world, mass marketing through social media is a great way to grab the attention of potential consumers. In a B2B setting, social media is a channel through which relationships are built and sustained. The following are some industry specific examples that demonstrate success in how businesses approached their social media strategy.

Retail

In the retail industry, the conversion of viewer to consumer is of primary importance. In developing a community through social media, businesses within the retail industry can target consumers to engage and buy into their product.

Demographics show that GoPro consumers are physically active, adventurous, and avid social media users. By implementing a UGC social media strategy (user generated content), GoPro has been extremely successful in increasing engagement and loyalty within their community. By offering a chance for product users to be featured on their social media pages, not only are GoPro consumers sharing actively through social media channels like Instagram and Facebook, but simultaneously marketing different product lines to potential customers. Other retail businesses like restaurant chains can similarly implement  social media as a channel for UGC and word of mouth to reach their engagement and conversion goals.

Influencers are becoming an increasingly common social media strategy. The relationship between social media and social media influencers has always played an active part in aiding retail businesses in selling any sort of product – whether that be a juice cleansing diet, an article of clothing, or a brand of makeup. Influencers are paid generously, and with a well-placed post on social media, influencers can offer retail businesses a targeted reach within a niche community. An impactful and recent example that demonstrates the importance of an influencer to a brand’s social media strategy is the relationship between Kylie Jenner and Snapchat. Known as the queen of Snapchat, Kylie Jenner has been one of the greatest influencers that brought Snapchat into the mainstream world that younger generations live in. But with one single tweet about how she no longer uses Snapchat – the business took a $1 billion drop in market value.

Celebrities and influencers also use social media as a way to market themselves. As well-known public figures, celebrities create a world of personal connection to their fan community through social media. Just as Kylie Jenner is an influencer for other brands, she and the whole Kardashian family also market themselves and their own products through social media.

Entertainment

The entertainment industry is naturally one of the largest players when it comes to social media. Also focused on increased revenue goals, the entertainment industry often uses social media to create content to resonate with its community and keep them engaged.

Netflix whose user demographics include younger generations with an interest in culture and trendsetting, is one such example of an entertainment business that uses social media to reach their community. To market their products and strengthen relationships, Netflix will post relatable and famous quotes from movies or shows they currently offer, relevant gifs, or current entertainment industry news. Upcoming or recently released movies will implement similar strategies in order to increase the engagement and reach of the movie to a wider audience who may be interested in seeing the motion picture in theaters. Through social media, entertainment products can fully showcase their brand and personality to their viewers, implementing a social media strategy that expands their reach and better connects them to relevant communities.

Science & Technology 

Technology is always changing and with social media, consumers can stay on top of technology trends, while tech companies can quickly and effectively reach out to the tech centered community.

NASA is one of many technology focused businesses that caters to its consumers who are always looking out for industry related news. By sharing eye-catching imagery and newsworthy stories, NASA has amassed a great following on their social pages from technology obsessed aficionados.

General Electric similarly caters to their average consumer’s interest in science and engineering by releasing relevant visual and written content that spans across topics like new research, educational information, and stories.

Marketing

And of course, B2B marketing professionals like digital creative agencies use social media as a way to increase the opportunity to build relationships and attract new contacts.

Though we can reference the success of other businesses, every client experiences their social media strategy in unique ways. Your digital marketing agency is always dedicated to adapting and adjusting strategy based off of your success. Social media strategy will never be stationary for long.

Developing KPI’s For Your Brand’s Social Media Strategy

The first step to starting a social media campaign for your brand, is to define your business goals that will help in developing your strategy. Commonly used goals within a social media campaign are increases in engagement, increases in brand awareness, or increases in customers. But how do we measure if these goals have been achieved? A carefully developed set of KPI’s will aid in giving you the answers you seek.

KPI’s, or Key Performance Indicators, are tools that can help measure your success in achieving your social media objectives. By optimizing and regularly monitoring these KPI’s, you can set your brand on the right path in further reaching your goals. Here are some KPI ideas to help start you off on measuring the performance of your brand’s social media strategy.

Impressions

Using impressions as a KPI defines the success of your strategy’s reach by quantifying how many people have seen your social media content. Though a singular person can generate multiple impressions, for example, on a Facebook post, higher numbers of impressions over time generally implies that viewers are being exposed to, and are more likely to trust and interact with your brand later on.

 

Engagement/Reactions

Engagement on your social media is driven over time by the number of clicks, likes, tags, positive comments, retweets, or shares on your social media pages. Using engagements as a KPI focuses on measuring your brand’s noticeability. For instance, a repost or tag on Instagram indicates that your viewer is interacting not only with your brand but with their own community as well. In other words, how much do your viewers like your branded content? The more your viewers react and engage, the more likely they are to notice and remember your brand in the future.

 

Click-through Rates/ Website Traffic

Engagement, however, must translate into an actionable decision on your viewer’s part to buy into your brand. A KPI to help measure the success of this transfer is by click-through-rate and/or website traffic.

A click is an actionable move made by your viewer, and a click-through rate deciphers whether or not if you’ve successfully redirected your viewers from social media campaign to website page. Once there, they can have the opportunity to purchase your product or service. This KPI demonstrates how your social media strategy has possibly generated more customers for your brand. If social media engagement is high, but website traffic shows little improvement, then this might be a sign to improve your content or call to action.

Sales Revenue

As a business, one of your objectives is most likely to increase your sales revenue. As a KPI, sales revenue determines success by looking at the conversion rate of how many of your customers found your brand through social media.

Customer Service

Because social media is one of the easiest ways to interact and connect with your consumers, it also becomes a channel through which your brand can provide superb customer service. Using this as a KPI, you can track the number of issues your brand has resolved through social media and can see how well your company is doing through the eyes of your consumers.

Share of Voice

Share of Voice is reflective of how much of a leader your brand is within its industry. As a KPI, share of voice asks how you to analyze how much buzz you are generating compared to your competitors. Measuring this can be done through tracking the messages being shared about your brand, filtered by a specific keyword or hashtag, and then comparing it to those of your competitors. If share of voice is low, looking at your competitor’s campaigns and seeing what they’re implementing may help you decide on the next steps to improve your own social media strategy.