Social media has become an over powering platform for all brands and stands as a stage for everyone to showcase what they’ve got. It is the most well-known platform for sharing stories and receiving them.
If you are a person who lives on the grid, you also know that it has now become a tool for brands, organizations, important personalities to broadcast their content and news. In 2016, it’s a norm for brands to have a social presence and more over update it on a daily basis. It is vital for a brand to use social as an instrument for communicating with its followers – primarily because it is a sure medium on which an average person spends at least 2 hours of his/her day.
According to new data, the average user logs 1.72 hours per day on social platforms, which represents about 28 percent of all online activity. Global WebIndex polled 170,000 internet users about their internet habits, and found that average usage times for social media sites rose from 1.66 hours per day in 2013 to 1.72 hours per day last year – Adweek
But then the question arises, with the thousands of brands existing on social today, it is crucial that your messages stand out from the rest. A task which isn’t as easy as it seems – a good strategy and planning will help you get on the grid and get noticed by more and more people, and in turn get more eyeballs towards your brand.
Here are a couple of pointers which will help steer you in the right direction.
1. Put on that engagement ring
Not quite in the literal sense, but make it your goal of every single day to engage with your users. The fact about social media is that it is a medium which provides a 2 way communication amongst a user and a brand.
The core of social media is to connect people, and in this case a brand with its users.
Create content which will make people think and even garner their opinion. Take some time off to read the comments or messages you receive on your page. Review the content your share on your page on a weekly basis, to see which post got the greatest likes, or the most comments. This in turn will help you perceive the audience’s reaction to your brand. Engaging with your audience will in turn get them to engage with you. Probably the most overlooked method, but there is a lot to learn by simply keeping a keen eye on your brand.
2. Fudgesicle vs an Ice Lolly
In the battle of a chocolate fudgesicle vs an ice lolly, the fudgesicle always wins. Hands down.
Your social content flows in a similar manner. The number of posts or the likes on your post, do you think it really makes a difference to your brand? As a brand you are not looking for a ‘lol’ or a ‘nice’ on your post. What you are looking is relatability. The number of shares and tags that you get is what is most crucial for your brand. That is the true measure for your brand engagement.
An ice lolly might satisfy you, but it’s not something you want to brag about, a supremely tasty chocolate fudgesicle on the other hand. Therefore at the end of everyday ensure that the content you are producing for a brand is useful and relevant to the brand.
3. Get in bed with your competitors
In the jungle of digital, it is highly necessary to keep an eye on the wellbeing of your brand and an eye out for your competitors. So put your detective hats on and get started.
In case you still haven’t figured out, stalking your competitors has many benefits besides being labelled a stalker.
1 – It teaches you what your competitors are doing
2 – It gives you an insight on how they are approaching things differently
3 – It also teaches you what to do
4 – And what not to do.
Make sure you can recite all their campaigns, their updates and biggest achievements. From their copy errors to design flaws, to a subtle change in their ‘About Us’ section. Doing this will help you judge what you can do for you brand, what you shouldn’t do and basically what you can do better.
So make as a brand manager, make sure to book mark your competitor’s pages and stalk them more than your girlfriend stalks you!
4. My brain is bigger
Cersei Lannister might think otherwise but we live by this suggestion. As a person who works in digital, you need to start living in it too. When you speak to your colleagues you should be able to recite the story line of a video done by a brand 10 years ago that almost got a Cannes.
That’s how well you need to know about the field you work in. Take time off, even if the only time off you get is your pee break, but take that time to research. While you sleep it should be ads flashing before your eyes instead of dreams. Yeah, no kidding.
5. Get your ‘Spidey Senses’ tingling
Once in a blue moon an amazing event takes place, an event which gets a lot of people talking preferably on social media. In a couple of hours this event starts trending and thus more people who didn’t know about this event start finding out about it and they start talking about it.
Brands notice this trend and use it as an opportunity to relate it with their core message or product.
As a brand manager, be the spider on the web and keep track of what’s happening on social. Relevant content is all around us, what we do with it proves our expertise in the field of digital.
So now step back from your laptop a bit, take a deep breath.
You’ve got a lot of work to do.