Most marketers agree that social and digital media programs are important in the overall mix, but strategies vary widely from there. We’re focused on diligently seeking out and learning the best ways to help clients navigate the ever-changing digital social space.
Beyond the growing importance of having an online presence, there is an even greater reason for a company to be on social media–agility. When it comes to agile marketing, social media is one of the best mediums to use.
At Torque, we understand social media marketing’s power and potential. For maximum business impact, we take an integrated approach to social media. Part content creation and interaction and part paid programs, we create, maintain, and amplify social media programs on a monthly basis. Each month, we strive to have better results, as measured in our analytics, than the month before. We report to the client monthly so they can see progress.
There is a great deal of strategy and technique that goes into the execution of such programs, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. At its root, social media is meant to be fun. We show the client data, but we let them into the fun side of it too, into helping create content calendars, brainstorming ideas for posts, and seeing the real time conversations the brand is having with actual people online. We handle the hard work, but we encourage the client to share in the fun of it with us, partnering to create maximum online visibility and reputation. [In fact, clients are integral participants in social media programs, each in ways that uniquely suit their culture. Examples of collaboration are giving their sales teams tips on how to use social media and bringing relevant interaction opportunities to the team so they can engage in the most relevant way.
Today, people expect brands to be authentic and fun. Social media is the place to truly connect with a brand’s audience. But how to tackle this new beast? This is where we take an agile approach. We first research and strategize, create a plan, then jump in and start testing, and adjust as we go.
Keyword and Content Source Development
We start with the keywords we think are going to be relevant, and build and refine advanced Google search streams from there. We develop searches and find key news sources, both for content curation and new people to follow.
Social listening
Often, people turn to social media to vent about frustrations, to ask questions, and to express opinions. We don’t assume we know what the target audience wants; we learn by listening to them online. Through searching certain applicable keywords, we find conversations relevant to a brand’s product category on social media platforms including Twitter marketing, Facebook marketing, LinkedIn marketing, Instagram, etc. We see what they care about in real time, unfiltered, when they are in the middle of solving problems.
Social media planning
Based on what we “hear,” we plan. We define who the stakeholders are and what their cares/concerns are and then create a social media strategy to reach and engage that specific audience.
Platform identification
There are so many social media platforms, and new ones appearing every week. How can you know which one or ones you should be on? We do an assessment of the brand, industry, and other factors to determine which platform will be the most effective to reach and engage with our most influential users.
Platform setup
Brand consistency is important so we are careful about the details throughout the social media program. When setting up the social media pages, we make sure they are consistent with the overall brand both in visuals and in voice. We especially make sure that they line up with the website. A good website will always be the most complete and authoritative source of information about a company, its culture and product offerings. Social media can be an extension of that platform, and a means of attracting much larger user audiences.
Content planning and editorial calendar development
Based on our research, we create an editorial calendar with topics and timing of posts. This can be adjusted as we we learn more from the analytics as well as relevant current events, but it’s vital to have a solid plan to begin with. We also plan ways to interact with followers in ways that tie into the calendar material and related events. Consistent posting and interaction leads to increased followings, brand awareness, and brand reputation.
Interaction
Content, both curated and original, is important, but there’s another key component to most effectively reaching audiences–interaction. Interaction is especially useful for visibility, reach, and responding to customer feedback in real time. We connect with the most relevant industry influencers online and then look for ways to start conversations with them, building our own brand visibility and reputation while creating valuable relationships with them. We also respond to customer online complaints in ways that build brand trust.
Community-building
We approach community-building differently for each platform. For example, with Twitter, we spend time manually following relevant accounts, carefully selecting those accounts to follow based on strategy and goals. For Facebook, we use targeted paid boosts to gain relevant followers. Whatever the platform, we put a great amount of effort into community-building because it is essential to the effectiveness of social media marketing.
Analytics and reporting
One of the advantages of social media marketing is in its measurability. Clients often ask how we can prove that social media marketing has business impact. We measure both deep and wide, meaning that we look at the number of people reached as well as the relevance of those people to the brand and how they are engaging with the brand. We also measure website traffic from social media to the website, one of our clearest way to see conversions. We look at the hard data and adjust our plan as we go to keep those numbers going higher every month.