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Finding the right social media consultant

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There are many important aspects about social media consulting, and at the end of the day the most important factor in choosing a good social media consultant is that there is a good rapport between the consultant and the client.  The importance here is that the working relationship be collaborative and transparent. 

When it comes to developing content that is appropriate for the business, nearly everything will be original and custom.  There is no assembly line for custom-made content.  There are processes which can be followed, but as a creative profession, any process or otherwise, attempt to streamline development, will always have exceptions.  There is no McDonald’s of good content development.

With that in mind, there are a few other traits that businesses tend to look for, rightly or wrongly, and these are discussed below:

  • Experience:  Much is said of choosing a social media consultant with substantial experience.  For many skilled professions, we know that perfection comes from practice.  While there is some merit to this idea in the context of social media marketing, there are some other things to keep in mind:  those who are highly experienced may follow a more pro forma approach, and be inflexible to changing methods or adapting to new trends.  This point is critical, as with social media, the landscape changes so quickly, your social media consultant should be equally adaptable.  Where there is a lot of change, there is nobody who has “experience” in what is new.  Businesses which highlight a long list of clients without also speaking of the fast-changing landscape and the need to continually learn and adapt their methods may be avoided.
  • One-stop shop:  Larger marketing agencies will promote their potential to do a wide range of tasks, from graphic design to content writing and campaign management.  These firms often charge a hefty premium for their one-stop solutions.  Businesses which operate on a large scale may find added value from hiring out online marketing, enabling them to focus on their core product or service offer.  For smaller businesses, however, there is little justification for this premium service.  In many cases, a small consultant which can offer reliable and regular service in blog writing, meme development or PPC campaign management is sufficient, and offers much greater value for money.
  • Creativity:  As a core part of the marketing process, advertising and content development are by nature creative activities.  Younger agencies often take a bold approach to their own business promotion by using unconventional terminology in describing their services, or even individual titles (the CEO of a now-defunct marketing agency in the US had taken the title “Grand Poubar” – perhaps to show that his organization was hip?).  Having a little fun with the process is quite an attractive proposition for many customers, but creativity is serious business and very challenging.  Whatever the CEO calls himself or herself, the important factor is that they take their marketing work seriously.
  • Analytics:  Online marketing is becoming increasingly sophisticated.  It is no longer just about posting a web page and adding some product descriptions.  That is good news for people who are comfortable with numbers.  Collecting information on your online performance, and then turning this information into meaningful analysis which can help to guide future activity is critical to optimizing your online performance.  This type of activity is helpful for businesses that already have a sophisticated marketing plan.  For small and medium-sized businesses, there is little that detailed optimization can do that consistent and frequent online activity (postings, blogs, customer replies, memes and other video/graphics shares) cannot do.  In other words, for SMEs, the key is consistency.  Knowing your customers and tracking some high-level metrics is helpful and important for monitoring the effectiveness of your content, but at this stage in the game, few businesses need in-depth customer analytics, what they really need is consistency.

While all of these points are helpful for social media consultants, what is most important will depend on your business situation.  In summary:

  • Experience brings knowledge and skill, but adaptability to a quickly changing market landscape is even more important.
  • The convenience offered by a one-stop-shop agency is attractive, but also comes at a price.  With a little self-management, businesses can get substantial value for money from smaller, specialized consultants.
  • Creativity is essential, but the working relationship with the consultant is even more important.  Non-creative messages which are relevant to your business and its audience are far more valuable than creativity for the sake of creativity.
  • Data analytics are developing quickly, however they are so far more useful in optimizing a campaign for a very large audience.  Small and medium-sized businesses should first focus on consistency and frequency – on “making noise”.  All other data metrics are vanity.

The rise of story-based marketing

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The story format was introduced to social media in 2018 by Snapchat, and soon after the other platforms followed suit.  This unique little approach has been highly popular, particularly among Millennials:  nearly 68% of millennials read stories on Instagram.  On Facebook, it is just under half. 

The immense popularity of this format is also turning heads with social media marketers and content developers.  And why wouldn’t it?  True content development is unique, interesting, personal and original.  Whereas it is easy to forward a meme and hope for a large following to develop, creating online stories is, by its very nature, a personal process.

Stories are more than just writing blogs, they tailor issues and topics to show a personal perspective.  Their ease of creation have been a primary driver of their popularity, but the authenticity is what engages readers and help them form an emotional connection with the writer. 

Story content is short-lived, so businesses which make use of this format can do so as a one-time effort to gauge response, and then if positive, may re-align their marketing budget (most likely weighing its effectiveness against blog writing) to enable the best possible engagement with customers. 

Because stories are of a personal nature, they can be more effectively used to make a personal connection with customers over time.  They are not necessarily calls to action if an immediate online transaction is your primary goal.  Nonetheless, if building relationships with customers over time is seen as a value-added marketing strategy, stories should be considered and then tested as a routine marketing activity.

Back to Basics – Drawing Customers to your Online Presence

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Building an online presence is more than just activating a website.  With the popularity of template websites enabled through WordPress (originally intended for frequent bloggers), or DIY website development on platforms such as WIX, the volume of businesses self-managing their online presence exploded.  Along with that there was created a vast wasteland of online content receiving nothing more than the occasional click, often brought upon by a Google search that happened to contain a lucky phrase that matched something on the website.

The fastest and easiest way to bring customers to your online URL is pay-per-click advertisements on Google and other online platforms, including those focusing on social media content such as Facebook (and all the rest).  Without a PPC budget, however, businesses must focus on organic search rankings through an SEO strategy.  Companies which outsource this work find that often times they get what they pay for.  Red Hat SEO techniques – ones which try to cheat the system – frequently produce good short-term positive results, but are eventually red-flagged by the search engine algorithm, and businesses can spend thousands of dollars and many months to restore their credibility in the sight of the search engines.

While an effective SEO campaign takes quite a bit of time or money (or both), low-budget businesses can see positive action with limited investment through a few approaches.

Emails:  Now considered a bit old-fashioned and for many businesses, would require a very manual process to carry out, direct emails can still draw attention, and may be particularly effective if your business or service offer is high-valued with a small base of customers.  Semi-original emails sent out in small volume (less than 10 at a time) are often not flagged as spam by the receiver’s host service, and therefore can serve as an effective way to highlight your business to the recipient. 

Emails are still a great way to communicate with customers, as an easy format with which to include visuals, white papers and other educational content, links to other online resources, and all of that with a personal touch. 

As always, some level of personalization is required, lest your business be seen as just another email spamming enterprise.  Nonetheless, even if a customer does not read your entire message, or for that matter simply deletes most in-coming messages as part of a routine, a personalized subject header can be sufficient to remind customers of your presence and thereby build additional brand equity.

Here is an example of where multi-channel marketing strategies may be most effective.  If you go to all the trouble to send out a personal email to an individual customer, picking up the phone and dialing direct could have a greater impact.  Emails are most effective when they are a follow-up to some other direct communication.  As a simple reminder that your business exists?  Emails can help if they are not perceived as spam.  There is a grey and sometimes very thin line between the two.

Social media:  Once again, multi-channel marketing is important to give your customer a sense of sophistication in your product or service.  Content Savants devotes a significant portion of its attention on social media content development and publishing strategies. 

There is a lot to discuss in this category, however looking at if from the perspective of driving customers to your website, then that is absolutely essential.  Memes and other postings don’t need to always be clever or colorful.  A simple link with a descriptive comment can be sufficient to drive traffic.  Too frequent posting will bore your followers.  Too occasional, and you miss out on the opportunity to provide diverse and creative content. 

Influencers:  Akin to buying an audience, online influencers (including social media influencers or professional bloggers), can be an effective way to reach a niche audience.  Although this type of promotion is not without a cost, the good news is that as influencing grows in prevalence as its own category of online marketing, the niche focus becomes more intense.  What that means for your business marketing efforts is that there are more likely cost-effective options for social media influencers or bloggers, ones who have already attracted and cultivated the audience you are intending to reach. 

While the influencer market remains a cowboy frontier, the most effective way for you to separate the wheat from the chaff is to search online and find social media influencers and bloggers who are relevant to your business.  Otherwise, if your ad campaign is not necessarily targeted to a specific customer group, an accurate user profile – targeting a type of consumer – will be necessary along with matching that user profile to the profile of followers of your intended influencer.  As with many marketing campaigns, accuracy in profiling is often as much an art as it is a science.

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.