Monthly Archives: November 2019

Costing social media marketing

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While many articles online regarding online marketing speak of the freeness of social media marketing, the fact remains that an effective campaign requires a combination of time and skill.  These qualities can be purchased, but without them, a social media effort is little more than a trickle after a light rain.  Getting over that hump is one of the greatest challenges for small businesses that venture unaided into social media.

To be sure, some business owners take to social media enthusiastically.  Frequently their efforts pay off.  Having a strong social media presence signals to your customers that your business means business.  It is a way to communicate confidence and strength, both of which are personas that attract more customers.  If success begets success, then active social media marketing is a way for a fledgling business to jump on the virtuous cycle of success. 

Newcomers to social media advisory often wonder about the pricing, and the cost of a robust social media campaign.  Costs range nearly anywhere your imagination can wander.  Some media companies which focus their operations on one or two types of activities (Content Savants, for example, specializes in meme production and blogging), whereas other media companies can provide a full range of services, including PPC marketing strategy, SEO and overall campaign management. 

Businesses which seek a narrow solution may pay a minimum of around RM 1,000 for regular content development (Content Savants offers daily meme production at less than that for monthly contracts), while full service campaign management may start at around RM 10,000 per month.  Both services can offer great value in marketing, depending on your scale of business and capacity for growth. 

From a practical perspective, it is useful to look at outside marketing support as falling into three categories:

Category 1:  Making noise:  publishing blogs and memes or other social media posts on a regular basis can make a significant difference in your online business profile.  If we were to graph the number of businesses on a horizontal axis showing the number of posts per week, there would be a tall bulge at the early part of the curve, indicating there are many businesses, many of which are your competitors, that engage in occasional social or online media posting.  Many businesses rely on location and word of mouth for their business growth.  Social media is an online word of mouth advertising, and with occasional activity, your presence can gradually grow.  Nonetheless, having a consistent and steady presence can move your business past the initial bulge of social media posters into the territory of value-added posters – businesses which are known for their activity and whose messages bring value to their respective communities and followers.  The first level of support from social media consultants can bring a business to this level. 

Category 1 typical service cost:  RM 1,000 to 2,000 per month

Category 2:  Getting serious:  services which provide the second level of support often include more detailed tracking of social media engagement with potential customers, with analysis of a wider range of online activity to both inform development of content as well as to track success of the overall campaign.  Businesses which seek this level of support are those which see social media as being an important part of their marketing (if not, the major part of their marketing).  Businesses which see social media marketing as significant to their success frequently have staff in-house who are at least skilled in content development and who dedicate a significant portion of their time each week to ensuring that content is developed and published.  Often times their campaigns are also managed in-house, but they may seek outside support in the form of blog writing or other content development, which on its own would fall into the first category above.

Category 2 typical service cost:  RM 2,000 to 5,000 per month

Category 3:  Focus on the core:  businesses which already pursue sophisticated marketing campaigns and which have chosen to focus on their core business (without investing in advanced in-house marketing capabilities) would require outside support to fulfill a wide range of marketing activities.  While a senior in-house individual would oversee marketing campaigns and their success, an external media agency (or a combination thereof) would be used to design, develop and implement the campaigns.  While these services come at a substantial cost, businesses which have achieved this level of market maturity would require – and be willing to pay – for top-level service so as to enable long-term growth or protect market share against equally-ambitious competitors.

Category 3 typical service cost:  RM 5,000 to 20,000 per month (and above)

What is true for all categories of social media service is that there are very few businesses which cannot benefit or do not need additional support in their online marketing efforts.  More people than ever are relying on social media and online research to guide them in purchasing decisions.  Online marketing strategies are having greater impact than ever before in moving people toward not only preferring certain products or brands, but to even want certain products at all. 

Fashion is an example of an industry that is fast-driven by social media marketing.  Fashion trends are defined by popular usage, and increasingly driven by influencers.  For fashion in particular, influencers have substantial… influence.  Unlike celebrities, they are seen as being normal people who, through hard work and brilliant content, have worked their way to a position of respect within the industry and among its user base, and for this reason their opinions are highly valued.  While a social media star may be in fact another type of celebrity, there is no denying their ability to sway and drive public opinion on fashion, trends and style. 

With the rise of popularity of social influencers and the endorsements they offer, this niche online activity is becoming a mainstay of the industry, where businesses of all types will soon have a lead influencer for their category of business, and with even greater granularity to follow, for their category of business within their specific geography. 

For businesses, the start of the social media strategy is category 1 as described above, making some noise.  Most business owners will choose to do this themselves at the start.  In time, the demands of business and the need to focus on core customers and activities will require that they consider external support, mainly for the “grunt work” of regular and frequent content development.  When they see the potential of social media and its ability to bring in new customers, the next logical progression will be toward Category 2 and 3. 

Alternatively, some business owners will see that actually, doing the social media work in house is quite fascinating, and when you get the knack of it, can be a lot of fun.  Either way, greater activity online is a win for the business and a win for the online community.

A Social Media Case Study – Pet Boarding

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One of the first clients for Content Savants was a small pet boarding business in Kuala Lumpur, Park City Pet Boarding located in Sri Petaling shop area.  With the initiation of a regular and frequent campaign of posting memes on Facebook and Instagram, positive results were seen in less than a month.  A fledgling small business which frequently had days with zero customers quickly transitioned into a business with a regular trickle of customers.  Continuation of the early positive results led to growth over time, and after four months, the business turned a highly-subsidized operation into monthly profits. 

While a “regular trickle of customers” was not the end goal, this situation represented a substantial improvement in operations, and helped to build momentum which culminated in its profitability.  Content Savants has continued working with the business to meet the owners’ goals of expanding its service offer.  The initial results, however, show a monthly RoI (not annual, as RoI typically conveys) of over 100% on the cost of social media marketing. 

The content service provided by Content Savants enabled regular and frequent posting on social media accounts, an activity which serviced to draw attention to the business among the thousand or so followers which had been accumulated in the business’s three prior years of operation.  The number of followers also saw a gradual increase of about 5% per month.  While this metric calls for further optimization, the priority focus for the business was to do a better job of attracting existing customers.  In other words, at this time, other metrics were of secondary importance to the business’s bottom line.  Content Savants highlighted this approach in our initial discussions with the business team, and developed a cost-effective strategy to see early, positive results.

Development of the social media theme was based on two motivating factors:  1) enabling a positive association with the business to develop over time a stronger connection between customers and the business, and 2) to convey the personal nature of the pet boarding service versus competitors which frequently caged up their overnight guests.  Park City saw this factor as key to distinguishing themselves from the competition, and to enabling a basis through which they could justify a higher fee compared to their nearby competitors. 

Implementation was carried out through the development of content that invoked association with well-known personalities.  Quotes about dogs and cats from authors, actors and other celebrities were developed into memes and published on Facebook and Instagram.  This content supported the first theme of enabling a positive association with the business.  By invoking quotes of famous people, the business also stood beside individuals with authority, generating a positive impression by customers who would recognize many of the famous personalities who also loved animals. 

The second theme was achieved through inclusion of original photographs taken at the shop, depicting animals in a fun and playful setting.  A wide range of images were selected, showing dogs and cats of different breeds, and also featuring other unique pets that the shop takes in from time to time. 

While the initial phase of Park City’s online presence has been sufficient to build the business to profitability (and over time, generate a social media RoI that can only be expressed in multiples), the next phase will require a more sophisticated management of a marketing campaign which combines elements of online social media with regular blogging on the business website, combined with a pay-per-click strategy that is guided by a detailed tracking of customer response rates. 

A more holistic and comprehensive approach will be the next step to raise Park City to a level above its more dominant competitors and to establish the business as a leader in pet boarding services across Malaysia.  At the same time, the early success of Park City’s approach demonstrates the amazing potential of social media marketing to raise business profile and attract the attention of online customers.

A Social Media Case Study – Composting Innovation

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Traditional composting begins with digging a hole in the back yard and letting food and bio waste decay over time.  This method is a great way to generate compost which can be mixed with the soil of a home garden or small farm, bringing natural fertilizer to the soil and giving plants and vegetables abundant nutrients to fuel growth. 

For city dwellers with a hobby garden, however, traditional composting is not a practical solution.  The composting pit often generates a bad smell and can attract unwanted critters into the property.  The process is slow, takes up precious limited land space, and is much less convenient than using commercial fertilizers.  BioTerra, however, has brought a new innovation to the local market in Malaysia:  small scale composting using an enclosed bit, in a process catalyzed by effective microbes specially cultivated by BioTerra which are environmentally appropriate to the region.  In other words, using good bacteria to accelerate the decaying process, urban gardeners can convert home food waste to easily generate garden and lawn fertilizer that is natural, organic, and a benefit to the local environment. 

The early challenge was tapping into a small, niche market to generate interest among the public and ultimately to develop a following of individuals which saw the value and benefits of composting food waste at home.  The concept of using “good” bacteria is unfamiliar to the general public.  For this reason, BioTerra’s social media campaign prioritized a series of educational postings about the product and its applicability in the urban context. 

While this theme helped to educate the public about their composting innovation, the other challenge was to build up a following in a short period of time.  BioTerra has been in business already for over ten years, however their longstanding customers are industrial, mainly large scale farming operations.  Entering into the consumer market required starting from scratch.  While BioTerra’s main marketing efforts were face-to-face channels (gardening shows, shopping malls and other hands-on displays), they gradually built up a social media following by leveraging the potential of social media as an informative channel, while at the same time regularly publishing images and information from recent public appearances or for future events. 

With a base of interested followers gradually growing, BioTerra initiated an online storefront with two popular commercial platforms.  Beginning results were slow, but with gradual promotion on social media, combined with informative content that generated credibility in the business and comfort in the innovation, BioTerra has seen its online sales increase, reaching 20% growth per month. 

BioTerra’s social media investment is paying off.  A positive RoI is expected in just a few more months, but considering the new customers BioTerra has already earned, and the repeat business that is expected over the years, a positive return on the social media investment is all but certain.  Continued development of customer relationships and potential use of pay-per-click advertising are strong candidates for the next phase of development, and may be essential next steps in raising broad public awareness of their unique and niche product offer. 

Trends for 2020

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Content Savants brings you practical insights in the world of media and Social Media Marketing.  The following article focuses on trending opportunities in marketing for your business, and practical steps you can take to leverage these trends for your own business success. 

Enjoy the ride, and if these trends continue, 2020 is shaping up to be a major shake-up in which businesses are successful and which will fall behind.

A quick look back

2018 brought some key insights into the world of social media marketing.  Many changes are taking place, and it is important for businesses to put into context some of the changes that are occurring in 2019, to identify longer-term trends that will impact the future. 

There are a few key points:

  • Direct customer engagement is becoming increasingly important.  A simple meme posting is good for building awareness of your business, however for a small increment in time spent on social media, responding directly to customers shows that your social media platforms are not just bulletin boards, but rather, that you are actively engaged in the business and in the process of connecting with customers.
  • Small-time influencers are becoming more important.  Social media influencers are growing from a small niche industry into a major business category within social media marketing.  Small time influencers who generate a following of well-targeted accounts can appeal to specialized businesses, offering effective endorsement at a fraction of the cost of major online social media influencers or celebrity endorsements.
  • Stories as a new category of posting.  First popularized by Snapchat, this short-term text/photo content format has also been copied by Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and even LinkedIn.  There are over 400 million daily online users taking in story-based content on Instagram alone.  Advertisers are beginning to take note.

Looking ahead

What these trends mean for 2020:

  • The marketing mix is growing in complexity.  A simple Twitter posting each day – while better than nothing – will wane in its effectiveness as simpler, more basic formats begin to lose clout versus complex visuals and videos.  Add to the mix new formats such as personal stories and small time social media influencers, successfully managing different channels of communication will put the onus on overall message development to ensure a consistent theme is published throughout different social media channels and formats.
  • Knowing your data will be key.  Few businesses will have the time and resources to try all social media approaches – adding on to that would also include SEO and PPC strategies – therefore keeping track of customer data, response rates, and social engagement will be key to discerning which types of social media activity are more effective and which should receive less (or occasional) attention.

How to respond

For the small business owner, we recommend the following initial steps if they are not already being done:

  • As always, maintain consistent engagement with your audience.  Optimization among a wide range of channels remains a secondary consideration to the importance of being heard by your customers on a regular basis. 
  • At the same time, track responses in a structured manner.  For many businesses, the occasional posting on social media, while a key part of their strategy, is nonetheless an informal task that continues to creep up on the calendars every week.  Taking that a step further, it will be important for businesses to track their social media activity and use that to identify patterns between posting and customer responses.  A simple spreadsheet showing the time of the posting, content description, accounts used, and after one or two days, what were the engagement statistics (including views, likes, and comments) as reported by the platform.  Over time, this data will give you insights which can save time and effort down the road.

These are just a few practical highlights.  Content Savants works with businesses on a case-by-case basis to identify opportunities to optimize social media with a customized analysis of your target customer profile and of the content which serves to generate action that leads to increased sales. 

Foundations in social media – choosing your theme

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For an individual or business which chooses to prioritize social media marketing, the easiest part is done.  The potential for return from a potentially small marketing budget for social media content posting is itself an overwhelming case to proceed.  The ability of social media to capture eyes, and then eventual sales, at relatively little cost to the business owner makes social media marketing an absolutely essential part of the business plan, for both small and large-sized businesses.

As with many great business ideas, the real challenge is in the implementation.  Social media takes time, effort, and dedication.  Without these underlying drivers of success, there is little to be gained from even having a social media account.  For many customers, the first information they see about your business will be the Facebook account that appears from a Google search.  If the account is out of date, with no recent or fresh content to show, the very first impression that your customer has of your business is to wonder whether or not you are still in business.  Showing an active social media page, however, can very quickly convey a sense of activity and, more importantly, your own enthusiasm for your own business. 

And therein lies the first challenge of the social media strategy, deciding how you want to portray your business, and trying to engineer – through original and creative content – the impression of your business that customers will carry with them.  When the average time spent on a social media page is twenty seconds, the feeling you leave in the customer’s mind is all-important, and can make a significant difference in whether or not they would like to continue learning about your business, if they would like to continue doing business with you, and even whether or not they will remember anything about you. 

How can businesses manage, and even, engineer that feeling?  How do businesses decide on a theme that will carry them forward to the development of 250 social media postings per year (one every business day)? 

As with most aspects of marketing, the answer may be more art than science.  Fortunately, there are some solid building blocks that can be used to build your social media foundational theme.

  • Let your customer lead:  that is a more practical way of saying, know your customer and what drives them.  Specifically, what are the key factors in their decisioning over accepting your products or services?  For many businesses, the underlying driver of decisions is trust.  Do they trust your care, your skills, and your pitch?  Trust can be conveyed in many ways, through demonstration of your knowledge of the business, by highlighting your experience in the business, or through customer testimonials.  Where comfort and identity are most important (identifying with the business brand, for example), the social media theme must focus on building a positive association with the business.  As an extreme example, cute photos of puppies or kittens are always attractive and always appeal to an individual’s emotions.  These are the types of themes that will drive the selection of social media themes.
  • Spontaneous versus deliberated:  Another factor that will drive content development is understanding how your customers’ decisions are made.  For spontaneous purchase of products or services, a highly emotional appeal must be made, and must be reflective in the content postings and blogs.  For other purchases (such as a professional service), customers’ decisions will be driven by research, and by the confidence they have in the service delivery.  In other words, the customer may deliberate extensively, and compare other service providers over time.  Images and content on social media must convey authority and knowledge to convey comfort and trust. 
  • Level of controversy or intrigue:  For some types of businesses (or social causes, for example), the conveyance of passion can generate action.  Where professional skills and trust of the customer are critical, drama or any type of controversy should not even be considered.  In attracting donations for a social cause, for example, personal stories and controversy-driven activism may be the core of a successful campaign.  The key point here is that your target audience must positively identify with the angst that is being portrayed.  Without this positive identification, controversial viewpoints will lead to a vicious downward cycle of indifference (at best) or opposition (at worst). 
  • Mainstream versus unique:  Early adopters of technology and invention are fundamentally motivated by a desire to stand out from the crowd through their adoption of leading-trend gadgets.  Tapping into that motivation is possible through conveying themes of uniqueness, extreme innovation, and viewpoints which (positively) challenge the status quo.  Mainstream products and services have more competition in the market, and therefore (with some exceptions), campaigns which focus on uniqueness may risk alienating customers whose core motivation is the security that comes from fitting into the crowd.  Instances of non-conformity tend to raise doubt over the applicability of the product or service to their own identity.
  • Multiple themes or single focus:  Very few businesses would fall into one single motivator or theme for the business.  Themes which convey both knowledge and authority may also be mixed with personalized testimonials and individual examples of transition and achievement.  Several motivating factors can be at play in each posted meme or published blog. 

These are the major factors to consider in the development of a social media marketing theme.  Other, more detailed considerations will reveal themselves throughout the content development process, but with a foundation built on this analysis, the second layer of development can be easily iterated throughout the process. 

Being clear about what themes are most relevant to your customers is the first step in optimizing the social media effort and in realizing its fullest potential.

Corporate Content

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Through the team at Content Savants (formerly HMC), we have completed over 5,000 individual articles and writing assignments since our founding in 2011.  These have included content writing for backlink websites, client blogs, press releases, and general web page content.  Industries include insurance, SEO and internet consultants, education & training, financial services organizations, and a long list of independent proprietors and online retailers for a broad range of products and services.

Dave’s personal CV includes those mentioned above, as well as other specialty assignments, including the following:

  • Cost benefit analysis for a $500 million national satellite program in Asia
  • Business growth strategy documentation and revenue analysis for a Thai-developed grid storage development company
  • Annual report editing for a Asian-based energy company; support in crafting the theme for the 2013 annual report
  • Project planning and market entry strategy for a global space applications company
  • White paper and feasibility study: navigation satellite systems in Asia
  • Fiber optic rollout strategy and project valuation for a Malaysian telecommunications provider
  • Malaysia National Economic Transformation Plan – implementation program design
  • High speed internet business plan development for a major Thai telecommunications provider
  • Malaysian government agency restructuring and revenue growth strategy – stakeholder assessment document
  • Thai technology innovation agency effectiveness assessment in business transformation and outreach

Dave has also performed operations analysis and financial valuation reporting for shareholder transactions at the following companies:

  • Birmingham Airport
  • Port of Penang
  • Gatwick Airport
  • Abu Dhabi Airport Company
  • Mumbai International Airport
  • Middle East Flight Training Academy

We stand ready to put this experience to work for your company and your writing requirements.

Fit to purpose social media strategy – cross-platform integration

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For the serious social media marketer, there are a few global platforms that have risen to prominence: 

  • Facebook:  still the top by far, with 2.4 billion active users
  • Instagram:  a distant second, but with broad popularity, having over a billion users
  • Snapchat:  now a distant third place, with around 330 million users
  • Reddit:  also around 330 million users
  • Twitter:  Twitter is still a must-do medium, having over 320 million users
  • LinkedIn:  with a focus on professional network, LinkedIn has just over 300 million users
  • Pinterest:  last one on this list with (only) 290 million users

We should also add to this list the Chinese platforms such as Weibo (376 million) and Qzone (563 million), both of whom continue to rise in popularity within China, and must be at the top of the list for any marketer focusing on the Chinese market.  Remember also that many regard YouTube as a social media platform, with nearly two billion users.  Similar to the others, allows easy posting of original content with the opportunity for users to comment. 

The landscape has changed somewhat, but not entirely.  In 2009, Facebook had just barely taken over the top spot against… do you remember, MySpace?   Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram hadn’t even launched, and Twitter, at the time, was boasting around the same number of users as now. 

With over fifteen years of social media platform development behind us, we still see a dynamic picture emerging regarding which platforms are popular and how these can be integrated into a social media strategy.  By some accounts, there are 65 different social media sites which are active (hello, MySpace), and many of them aim to cater for a niche market.  For example, hi5 is a social networking site aimed at the younger crowd, with features like flirt and enabling members to give gifts (presumably virtual gifts).  Quora is also considered a social networking site with a specific focus on crowdsourcing answers to questions.  MyLife flies under the radar for many analysts, but actually has 750 million users.  Its simple interface is very appealing to many people, although it lacks many of the higher-value features available on Facebook, and lacks the broad popularity for sharing.

Regardless of the type of business, sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are essential.  From there, a well-crafted social media marketing strategy will take a close look at many different online platforms and forums through which to broadcast content and promotions.  Matching these to the user profile you are aiming to target is essential. 

Much of the profile analysis centers around age ranges of the users.  For example, the sweet spot for Facebook is 25 to 45 years old, while Instagram has proven itself popular with a younger crowd, within 15 to 30 years old. 

There are three main questions a business must ask in determining which platforms to focus their efforts, as follows:

  • Regardless of age, does your target audience use this platform?  The most straightforward way to answer this question is to simply ask your customers.  You may not have the time or resources to execute a statistically valid survey, but an informal discussion about preferred social media sites can reveal a lot about which platforms will be most effective.
  • Are the capabilities of the social media platform in line with your business strategy?  LinkedIn is a fantastic resource for networking with professionals, but would have almost zero value in selling children’s toys, and members would react negatively to that kind of promotion. 
  • Does the social media platform offer the right tools of engagement, with the ability to track engagement rates and respond actively to customers?  Without these tools, not only is your social media strategy facing a dead end, you may also assume that the platform itself will not last. 

The right social media strategy for your business will be driven by the behavior and preferences of your customers.  Although there is only limited time and resources to leverage in pursuing customers via any popular marketing channel, time spent up front investigating your customer preferences can go a long way toward determining the optimum mix of social media platforms.

More than just followers – how social media helps your business

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Many businesses focus their social media marketing efforts on attracting followers and building customer engagement.  These are by far the greatest value-added social media objectives for business.  At the same time, a comprehensive social media marketing strategy should also take into account the broad range of opportunities and benefits afforded by the social media platform to enable holistic business development activities. 

Perhaps one reason why businesses often miss out on the full range of benefits made possible through their Facebook, Instragram, or other accounts is the fact that many of the value-added benefits of social media are difficult to quantify.  What is the value in a business reputation, and how does a business owner know if their reputation as a business is improving or stagnating? 

While it is difficult to ascertain an RoI for a social media strategy, particularly as it impacts more abstract qualities of a business such as brand value, there is value available for the taking.  The following list provides some insights into detailed categories of social media strategy, ones which can be integrated into the top-level strategy of gaining new customers.

Public relations:  Promotional content placed online must have a purpose for the business and speak of the business’s ethos.  That can be done indirectly, conveyed through the way in which content is presented and the tone that is used in telling stories or depicting graphics, and it can be done directly through messaging which conveys subjective, value-based comments about its products, services or even about the world around us.  Public relations benefits can arise from highlighting a firm’s corporate social responsibility or sustainability initiatives, or otherwise, activities done in support of charities.

Search engine optimization:  As a more technical consideration, social media marketing is more than just gaining followers, but can also play a direct and significant role in increasing your organic search rankings on Google and other search engines.  Increasingly, search engines are looking for businesses which engage with their customers and show an active pattern in posting and customer interaction.  Responding to customers, no matter what their comments are, is a way to show Google that you are an active business and that your business should be featured when someone does a search on relevant topics.  Businesses must also be sure that there is a link between online content and social media accounts.  This link ensures that Google crawlers know what to look out for when indexing sites and ranking for content.

Industry thought leadership:  Social media offers a chance to convey your company’s knowledge of the industry and, in so doing, further establishing your business as a leader.  This leadership role can be conveyed by posting white papers or original research in trending topics, by providing resources and links to other websites which have valuable content (but which are not necessarily a direct business competitor), and highlighting insights you have gained from past interactions with customers.  Your performance metric in this category – when you know that you’re gaining traction in the market with customers – is when you can post information about a trending topic and receive replies from people who either agree or disagree with your viewpoint.  In this case, it is not necessarily important to have the “right” content (the majority view) but to show respect to the full range of opinions and have well-founded reasons to support your own views.

Local leadership:  While thought leadership takes a global view on the positioning of your business, for the vast majority of businesses, interaction with customers will be on a local basis.  Highlighting your roots and your cultural heritage in the local context is a way to identify yourself in the community, creating a natural bond between you and the audience.  More than just creating a bond, many searches by customers are geographic based, often including a “near me” at the end of their search to find a vendor or service provider who is locally based.  As a basic technique, ensure your address and phone number is on the website, and mention of the local area is key, particularly for service businesses which rely on face-to-fact interaction with their customers.

Marketing message development:  A social media marketing campaign should indeed begin with consideration over the main themes and messaging to be conveyed.  Some companies, however, may use social media feedback and customer comments to help develop and hone marketing strategies for future use.  Particularly for those businesses which mainly rely on mass media marketing, social media can be a great testing ground for new ideas in marketing.  Content which receives negative responses or lower engagement can be quickly pulled, while well-performing content can be further developed and refined.  As a proving ground, social media enables greater agility by your business with respect to its overall marketing strategy.

Recruitment:  Business success begets business success.  Not all “customer” engagement is about customers.  By conveying a positive corporate culture, and even including a hint of seeking exceptional talent in occasional posts, people will respond, and you won’t have to spend a single cent to receive employment inquiries from people who you know already have an interest in your industry in general, or specifically in your product or service.

Customer and industry insights:  Social media is as much an opportunity for current or potential customers to learn about your business as it is an opportunity for you to learn about your customers.  This learning opportunity extends beyond analytics and engagement tracking, but into the very heart of what makes social media the amazing medium it is today – genuine personal interaction in all its different forms, including one-on-one chats with individual customers.  While engaging customers directly can be time-consuming, smart questions and bring smart answers.  Social media enables that interaction like no other medium to learn from people that you otherwise may never have even met.  We all like to chat with our friends and colleagues, and more often than not, these people have similar views and think like us.  The chance to hear an honest opinion from someone who has a completely different outlook on life could be worth its (or their) weight in gold.

As noted above, a comprehensive social media campaign will first, focus on generating business, but with that objective in place, your holistic marketing strategy may also take into account opportunities to enhance engagement with customers and show greater value-added potential in the market place by tapping into the broader range of benefits that social media platforms offer.

Developing the SMM Strategic Plan

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Pre-development Stage

Before you begin with developing the strategy, taken an inventory of your current situation.  List the current platforms on which you have a social media, or any online presence.  Note how many likes and comments you have received in the previous month on content that you’ve posted, include the number of followers, and note the engagement statistics (reported by some platforms, but not all).  Then write one or two sentences which characterize the activity on this account over the past month.

The next step is to make a quick survey of your competitors.  This exercise is useful not only to make you aware of what other businesses are doing, but also to inspire ideas in your own content development that can be useful in defining your social media strategy.  In assessing your competitors’ presence, note which social media sites they use, how frequently they post, what type of content they post, and as a final thought exercise, write a one or two-sentence characterization of their strategy, based on your own speculation as to what what you think their strategy may be and how you would describe it. 

The third pre-development step is to describe your customer profile.  This description can include, where relevant, factors such as income level, family situation, typical interests which bring them to your business, and reasons they need your product or service.  If there is any factual or statistical data you have upon which to base the profile, include that in the description.  While as business owners we may welcome customers from any walk of life, as long as they pay us money, the main point of this exercise is to create a mental picture of the customer, something to use as a framework and basis to develop different types of content.  When we think of content development as being merely about the product or service of the business, we are greatly limited in the potential to reach out to our customers and connect with them.  On the other hand, when we focus our mind on who are customers are, the type of people they are and the things they like to do, we can develop a much broader potential portfolio of content, one which enables online blogs and postings to have a deeper impact from the customer’s perspective.

Case Study:  On many occasions, prior to our first meeting with a prospective client, we ask them to pull together the information described above (although when it comes to customer research, we usually have a good sense of the industry and what kind of content businesses are posting).  Having this information ready makes the first client conversation much more meaningful and efficient, and helps us to better target first round campaigns, and to develop a cohesive message or theme which can be reinforced in other areas of the business and through other, ongoing marketing efforts. 

Strategy Development

The Commander’s Intent

In the army, offensive campaigns begin with the Commander’s Intent, which is a brief statement of the objective in battle, such as “To take out the city’s main bridge.”  Having this statement in place ensure that during battle, when unexpected scenarios play out and things go wrong, the soldiers on the ground know what the main objective is, so that their improvisation, if it needs to occur, can still be done with the main goal in mind.  So also it is with the social media campaign, having a statement of the commander’s (or business owner’s) intent.

The Social Media Mission & Vision Statements

Based on the statement of intent, the Mission and Vision statements can easily follow.  What we’re looking for here is not a Fortune 500 corporate-level company vision statement, but rather, some brief notes on what you want to achieve out of the marketing campaign.  There is no need to write the words in gold and hang them above the office entrance (you can do that if you want, and that would be helpful to galvanizing your employees’ efforts), but rather, a starting point for imagining a future state to carry the business and, in this case, its marketing efforts.  You may modify the statement over time. 

A vision statement differs from a Mission statement in its focus.  Whereas a vision statement is a state of being to which a business aspires (near future or possibly more distant future), the Mission statement describes in high-level actions how you intend to achieve the vision. 

Some companies supplement these with a values statement, which is a description of the values which drive the vision and its implementation.  Since we are focusing on a practical and actionable social media strategy here, the values with which those are achieved would include basic, honest and ethical business practices, something we assume among our clients. 

The best way to advise on the development of the guiding statements is to demonstrate the outcome with some examples:

– Statement of Intent:  To attract customers and increase revenue

– Vision – Example 1:  To be identified by customers as a leading expert in the service we provide, and to be the go-to service provider which comes first to mind when they are ready to buy.

– Vision – Example 2:  To offer products and services which are the best in the industry, fostering a reputation of excellence among followers through social media content.

– Mission – Example:  We will achieve this vision through relentless customer service as seen through active responsiveness to inquiries and comments on social media, which will be borne of high quality content that is informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking in nature.

Many variations can be developed of these statements, all of which speak to the goals of the business and the ensuing content that is published for the world to see. 

With these statements in writing, we have the foundation for the development of not only the content that will be published, whether it is in the form of memes, blogs, stories, photos, videos or other, but also the ways in which this content can be communicated. 

While statements such as these are by nature abstract, they can have a profound impact on the development of the marketing plan, and on the implementation of the details along the way.  As most entrepreneurs and business owners will attest, success is often made or broken on even the tiniest of details.  That is why having a firm picture in mind of the intended result, expressed through the vision and mission statements, is so important to the social media marketing strategy, and particularly important as a primary reference for those in your organization who are carrying out the plan, or to the external consultant that is supporting the process and content development.

Implementation Plan

The core of the social media strategy is in the implementation.  As a strategic analysis, the purpose at this stage is not to go into the detailed action plan or long run project planning, but to identify the ways and means of implementation, including resources that will be dedicated to achieving the plan.  The following are the main categories of activity that should be described in the social media marketing strategy:

– Social media accounts:  Which platforms will be prioritized?  The answer to this question is based on a few factors:  the determination of the social media audience and its relevance to your business (does the crowd fit your profile?), the potential on this platform to continue growing the network, and your level of comfort in using this platform.

– Frequency and timing of posting:  How often will you post?  For every business, there is an appropriate balance of posting frequency.  Too much posting over meaningless content will lose attention from your customers, however if there is a commitment to develop content that is diverse, engaging and relevant to the customer profile, reaching the point of saturation would be almost impossible.  On the other hand, too little content (only 2-3x per week) risks insufficient exposure of the business to generate any meaningful results.  Content Savants recomments a starting point of daily content publishing, as long as that content is diverse, and only a fraction of the content should promote the business directly.  With respect to timing, a detailed schedule should be developed to determine which social media accounts will publish content at pre-determined times of day, to help optimize visibility among the targeted customer profile.  Determining the best time of day may require some testing in the early days of the campaign.

– Content development process:  How will you develop content?  Is there a person in-house who can design and develop memes, who can write blogs and tweets, and who can be responsible for posting the content on a daily or frequent basis?  Will you appoint an external creative agency for development of the content?  This service is at the heart of what we offer at Content Savants.

– Define the engagement funnel:  At the start of a social media marketing campaign,

– Engagement & Reaction Tracking:  How will you track success of the marketing campaign?  Who will oversee results?  Here is where you can list the metrics to be tracked (depending on the social media platform) and the aspiration for growth of those metrics over time.  As your social meadia presence grows, you will also have the opportunity to reply to comments.  Timeliness of the reply is critical to achieving conversion to actual sales.  Who will be in charge of this activity?  Will you employ any SMM management tools to aid in this process?

– Analyze and Optimize:  There should be a continual effort to improve and enhance the strategy, not only with respect to the type of content that is posted, but also the overall objectives and success of the marketing campaign.  A part of the social media strategy will be trial and error.  In other words, there is no established formula for businesses to follow, therefore a system must be put in place to enable analysis of results, and to direct a response to the results.  You may call upon an external consultant for assistance in interpreting the results of the campaign, and in developing a plan of action to respond to customer comments or to modify messages according to success, market trends, changes in the business situation, or other driving factors. 

– Risk management:  Every strategy should include a section on risk management and mitigation.  Not every scenario can be predicted, but among those that are considered, a pattern of responsiveness will emerge, with an individual appointed to lead a response to any risks which might come to fruition.

Refinement of the strategic plan

As part of the campaign itself, refinement and optimization of social media activity will be important to its continued success over time.  The social media strategy itself should be regularly reviewed.  As a business grows, the potential opportunities for marketing and customer engagement also grow.  With a larger audience and more resources available, after the low-hanging fruit is captured, different approaches may prove more effective in reaching new audiences and in gaining responses from silent customers.

Another key opportunity that will become increasingly critical as your business grows is that of integrating your social media marketing with other channels.  This point speaks to more than just ensuring there is a consistent message across channels, but to the ways in which activity in one channel can complement others.  For example, inclusion of a QR Code in print media advertising can direct potential customers to a social media account or organization website.  Timing of a live streaming presentation can initiate social media campaigns, which can be used to promote product announcements on a live streaming service.  The combination of possibilities is endless. 

The most important part, however, of any social media strategy is the part that reads, “do it.”  Every day without a posting or blog is a day lost forever, and with it, an opportunity to connect with customers.  The sooner the campaign begins, the sooner you and your business start climing the ladder of success.