5 Key Lessons Learned in Social Media Marketing
The world is speedingly becoming digital. To stay on trend one needs to constantly catch up with the newest. Therefore, instead of just having a chilled easy Saturday, I attended a whole day Social Media Marketing class at Westminster Business School yesterday. It was a time worth spent. Here are 5 key lessons learned of many:
1. You need to be digital and social to have your brand out there
Inspiration, innovation, progress, customer engagement – keep up with the speed of the world’s digital development movements! Know your customers, current and target ones, and be there out with and for them. People live their lives with their digital devices now – the first thing someone does when waking up in the morning is checking their e-mails; what someone does while having their morning coffee – is reading thought provoking articles in LinkedIn; on the way to office what someone does is checking out what their friends are doing in Facebook; when leaving the retail shop at the lunch time what someone does is tweeting a comment on their customer experience in Twitter and Instagraming a picure of a newly bought item. Explore your customer behaviours, likes and needs in digital world to better add value and build your professional brand for them.
2. Goals, goals, goals… and be strategic
As in any other area in life, to stay focussed, be impactful and to not get losed in the huge world of digital, you define clearly your goals what you want to achieve in social media. You clarify the purpose – is it for your personal brand develpment, for your customer engagement, for your company brand and talent attraction or any other aspiration? When you are clear on your goals, purpose and your target audience, you can best choose social media platform where to be vocal, visual and adding value for your target audience. You can define your social media strategy in a more targeted and tailored way when you have clarity on your purpose and goals. Being strategic your will make a better impact.
3. Measure to make a better impact
I love KPI’s and analytics and being able to measure how my actions turn into tangible, measurable results! In digital marketing and social media you can measure any activity you do. Best and most insightful tool for digital insights is Google Analytics tool. You can measure almost everything there, even impact of the words you have said in your message and how changing one word makes an impact to the reach and conversion rate. You can measure how many people have received your message, have seen it, have liked it or commented, or found it valuable to share it forward. You can mesure what action your message has initiated and whether that leads to achieving your goals.
4. Devil is in the detail
Learn how to use social media platforms, what features they have and how to best apply them to make an impact. Learning how to better use hashtags in Twitter opens a door with opportunities to reach out to people with common interests or learn what others are sharing about themes you are interested in. Learning that people respond better to pictures or video’s can make your message more impactful. Learning how to improve your pictures with Instagram can make them more enjoyable for your target audience. Learning how to connect and reach out to people across the globe in Linkedin can open you new job, collaboration or business opportunities.
5. Keep learning
Social media and digital marketing technology and options are developing constantly. What was impossible yesterday, is a common feature today. What is new today, will be a history tomorrow. Digital world requires constant curiosity, exploration and focus on development. Learn from your friends, colleagues, from your children and their classmates. Learn from people who are different from you and have different habbits, as they will definitely know something that you may not have discovered yet. Keep learning to be successful!
The Social Media Marketing lesson yesterday has definitely encouraged me to revisit my social media knowledge and strategy. It has generated thoughtfulness for being on track of the digital developments and being out there to add value.