Your team’s been focused on driving the business and brand through social media. You’ve put analytics tools in place and pulled together great creative minds to conceive and execute better and better content for your social media platforms. So why are you seeing your results flatten out and even decline, despite the strategic approach and increased investment in execution?
There have been three big-picture changes we’ve seen on social media platforms over the last several years, each contributing to changes in the way we can and should put them to best use.
First, we’ve seen a drastic fall in organic reach by platform. All the major platforms have been affected, most notably Facebook. So you may be investing more and more in great content for your organic community, but fewer and fewer people are seeing it.
Making matters worse, the costs to promote your content and grow your community have also increased as the social ad platforms have attracted more brands, such that competing for your audience’s attention has become more expensive.
And third, those shiny influencers brands engage to promote their products and services can be hit or miss when it comes to return on investment (ROI). There are concerns that some influencers have a larger percentage of fake or bot followers or followers who may be irrelevant. An influencer’s true value has always been in making (at least seemingly) authentic plugs for things they believe in. But there have been a variety of examples of influencers promoting things they don’t understand and that have gone badly (#FyreFestival, to name one). Some claim this may result in a growing distrust toward influencers and, therefore, declining value in influencer-promoted posts.
There is evidence showing that Gen Z, in particular, values authenticity, to the point of disliking the “Insta aesthetic” — the beautifully composed and highly produced shot that fits into a perfectly balanced, color-coordinated feed. Many of today’s influencers aspire to that model, but we are starting to see a new breed of influencer emerging. So it will be important for brands to pay attention to how their influencer campaigns perform and make adjustments to match audience taste.
How should my social media program evolve?
So, how do you take this information and use it to your brand’s advantage on social media? Well, it all depends on where your brand is in its lifecycle, which determines its immediate-term priorities.
Startups/Early Stage
At this stage, the most important objectives are demonstrating traction and testing and learning which audiences and messages to focus on.
Tactic No. 1: Organic Growth And Presence For Credibility
Organic social media will not be a primary driver of sales because your audience won’t be large enough, and organic reach of 1-2% of a small audience limits your exposure. You also probably don’t yet have a large group of brand advocates to create an active community who frequently engages and shares. That said, you still want to create a branded social media presence on your top-priority channels (which depends on your audience and where they are) and begin to organically grow your community to build trust and share brand values and messages. To avoid over-investing your time early on, you can consider consistently posting one to three times per week vs. daily.
Tactic No. 2: Paid Social Campaigns To Test Audiences, Messages, Creative And Offers
This is where most of the time and money should be focused, as these programs ultimately become the engine for your startup’s growth, attracting new customers, reselling and upselling existing customers, and creating engagement on top content and campaigns.
Tactic No. 3: Niche, Microinfluencers
At this stage, a big bet on a major influencer is risky due to the high cost. Instead, consider a set of microinfluencers whose audiences directly overlap with your own and focus on authentic endorsements.
Established, Growing Brands
With a solid and growing community established, and brand advocates engaging with and sharing your content, it’s time to invest more in ongoing high-quality content creation. Couple this with targeted promotion to continue to expand your reach and drive engagement.
Tactic No. 1: Social Analytics
Develop strong analytics to understand what organic and paid content is resonating with your audience (and why) to help shape your content strategy.
Tactic No. 2: More Consistent Organic Content
If you were posting less frequently during your startup phase, you’ll want to increase your cadence of organic content on your most important channel(s). With data on what is resonating, you can focus on developing stronger creative and content series that speak to your audience and tell your brand story.
Tactic No. 3: Expand With Paid
Your paid social media program continues to play an important role in expanding your community and driving mid- to bottom-of-funnel brand objectives, such as increasing traffic to your website, capturing leads or encouraging purchases in your e-commerce or physical store.
Mature Brands
For a strong, mature brand with a large and engaged community who knows and understands the brand, your social media presence is about surprising and delighting your customers. It also means engaging them and creating strong social proof for newcomers, and sharing new products and services to increase customer lifetime value and share of wallet.
Tactic No. 1: Innovative, Fresh Creative
Invest time and energy in strong, innovative and creative ideas and exciting content, activations and campaigns. It’s worthwhile and keeps your community coming back for more.
Tactic No. 2: Paid Program To Drive Engagement And Key Communication Objectives
There is still a role for paid media to promote your most important content, campaigns and activations to your existing community, as well as to similar audiences. Paid promotion is also important for any new product launches, where quickly building brand awareness and adoption among your community and adjacent or related audiences is a priority.
In summary, brands should be clear on where they are from a maturity perspective and what their primary objectives are when deciding on their social media tactics and approach.
