Industry: Customer Experience
Content: Blogs, whitepapers, eBooks, graphics, video, video blogs, social media engagement and ads

TL;DR: Rapid social media growth boils down to having the right assets to leverage from the onset and following a holistic strategy that promotes them effectively.

At this point in time, few marketing experts would question the viability of social media marketing. As with any content marketing venture, creating a holistic social strategy that pulls from multiple elements is crucial to move leaps and bounds from where you are to where you want to be.

One Brafton client saw the potential that social media marketing had for their goals, but was unsure how to reach it with their existing content.

Problem

The client had a large pool of content on their site, but did not have resources to build the social media presence they needed to share their assets with their audience.

Strategy

Brafton’s social media marketing team took a two-pronged approach to build the brand’s credibility on social channels.

  1. We started with heavy outreach to industry influencers to build exposure and foster relationships.
  2. We also employed social media ads to target users that would benefit from the content but might not have been aware of the brand yet.

Results

In just three months, the client’s social channels generated over 5,000 social engagements and almost 500 website referrals. Additionally, in that time frame, the client went from having no social presence to 800 followers. Website visitors who came from social media spent almost twice as much time on site than the average visitor, proving the value of our targeting efforts.

Referral traffic pinpoints social visitors as the most engaged on the site..

Social media engagement: February – March

Before Brafton came on board, the client had no social activity at all.

Social media engagement: May – June

With Brafton's help, social became a major player in the client's digital marketing strategy.

Brafton was able to find such success for this client for four main reasons:

  1. We had a lot of great content that was ready to share from the beginning of the strategy.
  2. We took a proactive approach in an active community that gave the client visibility in their space.
  3. We knew our audience and how we could provide the best value to them.
  4. We took concrete actions to reach our audience.

5 things to consider before starting your business’ social media strategy

Do you have the content to support a social media strategy?

There are times when our excitement to complete a new project overrides the necessary steps required to execute it effectively. With so much hubbub surrounding the effectiveness of business social media marketing, it’s easy to want to dive in head first. Unfortunately, doing so will likely set yourself up for failure.

If you’re not going into the battle for your consumers’ attention armed with an artillery of content, your target audience won’t have any reason to navigate back to your website. One of the reasons our client’s strategy was successful was the fact that they already had a bevy of enticing content ready and waiting to share with the right users.

What networks are your target audience most active on?

This is one of the most important questions that you need to ask yourself prior to kicking off any social media marketing campaign. The last thing that you want to do is invest your time and energy into a Twitter campaign just to find out your target audience is actually more active on Facebook. You can use our guide to choose which social media network to use, but first you might want to build out your buyer personas to get a deeper understanding of your target audience.  

How much time do you have to dedicate to social media?

Along with determining which networks you should be focusing on, you need to determine who is going to have the time to dedicate to running campaigns on these social networks. Creating comprehensive social media marketing strategies require time and attention to detail, and Brafton’s social media experts put a lot of energy and thought into crafting and executing effective strategies for our clients. Industry influencers won’t just come rushing to engage with your social channels. You need to be proactive and reach out consistently with quality insight in order to get the likes, shares and comments back that you need to bolster your social media efforts.

What voice should you use on social to engage with your audience?

This can be one of the most challenging aspects of kicking off a social media marketing strategy. The tone that you choose to represent your company on social media should largely reflect the culture of the business itself.

Does your business have a start-up vibe with ping pong and a beer tap in the office? You can probably use a more casual tone and blend your business-related posts with more light-hearted content.

Is your company more classically professional, with only the occasional casual Friday? You should probably stick to a more formal tone that reflects how you communicate internally. Even with this approach, it’s smart to allow for some tongue-in-cheek humor to make its way into the st
rategy as it makes your brand more likable and relatable – no one likes business 24/7.

Do you have the budget to run ads to get you started?

Finally, if you have room in your budget for targeted social media ads, it’s well worth the investment. The more updates that social media networks make to their algorithms, the harder it tends to get for businesses to get in front of the eyes of their consumers without coughing up at least a little dough.

One of the reasons that our client’s strategy was able to hit the ground running was due to the incredible targeting that these networks provide for social ads. Even if your social media channels are already established, it is still wise to invest in social ads to reach the audience you may not have organically encountered yet.

Kyle is the Marketing Manager at Brafton. He is a Rhode Island native with a love for marketing, food, the ocean, music, dogs & naming things he loves.