A long ago, a famous person from a very famous Brand had asserted, in great frustration of course, “50% of my advertising budget goes astray and I don’t know which half of it!”
What was once told about advertising, quite likely that the same would be told about Social Media Marketing i.e. SMM soon, as almost all Brands are going gung ho to leverage the market and consumers alike through Social Networking.
It’s actually very easy to be present on web, precisely on the various social networking sites such as facebook, linkedin, twitter, google+, YouTube and the likes.
In fact, it’s easier to create a profile page on each of those sites and then fill up the page with some content hoping that an interaction with audience will take place immediately and will continue to grow… exactly the way you wanted in favour of your Business or Brand.
No harm in hoping so, since hope has always been a positive thing to possess on your mind and in your heart.
However, the reality is, to stop and save your hope from turning into hope-against-hope, you need to think and do a bit more than just creating a profile page and adding some content onto it.
First and foremost, you got to understand the basic nature of a social networking site.
Despite the fact that all such sites one way or the other stand for social networking and thereby help a Business or Brand do some Social Media Marketing, but in reality, the nature of each site is unique, and thus impacts the SMM of your Business and Brand, accordingly.
For example, both twitter and facebook are heavily used for social networking, but as per operational modes, as well as in terms of user friendliness and content delivery and exchange facilities, these two sites are very much different. When twitter is still more of a message board kind, facebook is an open forum or platform. That means twitter is better, if one-sided communications are the need of the hour, whereas facebook is better, if two-sided communications i.e. interactions are sought after.
Besides that, the nature and characteristics of your target audience should also help you determine which social networking site(s) you should select and use more, and which you should avoid and use less.
Once that is fixed, comes the most crucial part of SMM and that is: Content.
First, consider the kind of content that you might use. That could be –
a) Text
b) Visual (in the form of photographs)
c) Web Link (Both text and visual types)
d) A/V clip (movie, TVC, song, lectures, etc.)
e) Game (web based, downloadable or non-downloadable)
Second, think of the nature of the content that you feel like using. It’s a very vital part of SMM. The nature of the content should be selected only on the basis of what you actually wish to derive or gain from your SMM practice.
The nature of your content will be perceived by one mostly in keeping with your tone of communications. And, not to mention, this tone (or tonality) of communications is very important for your SMM in order to engage and excite the target audience meeting your requirements vis-à-vis theirs.
Broadly, you might try out the following ways to provide different tones to your communications so as to involve your TG with your content –
1) Hilarious: This is so far experienced as the best tone to win over consumers / customers / prospects. Yet, you got to understand the nature of your content shouldn’t be diluted by your tone of communications. For instance, you cannot afford to share the news of an earthquake through hilarity
2) Direct: This is a good ploy to put forth your communications in case you are trying to pass on some product or service related info and know you are talking to whom rather categorically. In this case, you actually have known who might be your customer or already is. So here, instead of communicating in a generic manner, you can afford to be more direct and guiding
3) Nonchalant: This works perfectly when you just need to share something for others’ notice and knowledge, but not expecting too much of a talking or any productive results out of it
4) Curious: This manner of communications is pretty suitable when you wish to know things from others. It’s a nice strategy to do some market research spending almost zero money but only a few hours of time
5) Free-flowing: This is also pretty workable method to occupy people on your content where a free-flowing discussion takes place. Time to time this discussion might lose its original context and go haywire. But still, the functionality of this technique of communications remains quite productive, while you are willing to know many things about others without even letting them know that you are curious
Third, when you know it for sure the kind and nature of content you want to share and how, you got to take care of the following things –
A) Team building / Self-development and evolution, to execute the SMM
B) Time management, to do the SMM almost on a regular basis
c) Getting better off with the latest analytics, to make sure you are always up to the task being fully aware of what’s working and what’s not for your SMM
As a matter of fact, the size and volume of your business and brand notwithstanding, unless and until you are responsible to acknowledge and accept that in SMM the word ‘social’ is very crucial and therefore you’ve to contribute to ‘society’ and ‘humans’ at large through your marketing… exploiting the new media, your chances of succeeding in the arena of social networking is very remote.
Hence, be social, and try to content people with your content, and in the process earn everyone’s consent for your success in social media marketing through social networking.
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