Mastering social networks offer significant competitive advantages to develop your business.
From the choice of platform to the type of message to be posted and the management of communities, good practices make it possible to exploit all their richness, a wealth of consumers not to be neglected that good advertising campaign maintains for the happiness of users.
This reality is well integrated by digital companies that massively invest in social networks to track down leads or partners, monitor their brand image and that of their competitors, build customer loyalty or generate traffic on their website.
But be careful, having a profile on Facebook or LinkedIn is not enough. Establishing a foothold on social networks and reaping benefits from them requires above all concretizing your strategy upstream. The first things to consider are the audience the company is trying to reach, what it wants to promote through social networks and its performance objective.
In B2B social media communication, Facebook is often considered a second-rate platform, with marketers tending to choose LinkedIn or Twitter for their marketing strategy.
This is a mistake because in reality we all surf on our Facebook account during our work week and in our free time. Our minds are never really disconnected from the world of work, so the B2B audience is definitely present even if a brand’s approach must be different from that of Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube or G+. Especially since Facebook’s advertising services can really boost the effectiveness of an inbound marketing campaign.
This analysis will depend in particular on the choice of the social network to invest. For example, a BtoC professional will choose Facebook to reach a very large number of consumers. By offering promotions or contests, it generates “I like” and attracts “Fans” to its profile and website. A BtoB professional will prefer LinkedIn to develop its sales force, meet future prospects or partners and expand its network.
Optimize your publications
In any case, before each campaign, it is necessary to carry out an inventory and observe what is working or not. Some good practices should, therefore, be adopted, whatever the platform is chosen, to make the messages more striking and obtain better results.
First reflex: insert images.
On social networks, as on its website, it is not enough to post text. There is a very strong appetite among Internet users for photography and video and it is they that give impact to the information delivered, a service dedicated to information and communication technologies for small businesses. For example, according to a study conducted by marketing solution publisher Hubspot in 2012, a photo gets an average of 53% more “likes” than a text publication and generates twice as many comments.
Beyond formats, good animation on social networks implies the distribution of specific, even exclusive, content, advice or surveys. Thus, a consumer company can talk about its teams, introduce a new recruit, and ask the opinion of its community on a product or a new trend. A BtoB professional will announce his presence at a trade fair or react to the latest news about his ecosystem.
The goal?
Build a privileged relationship with the social worker and make him an ambassador for his company, voluntarily and regularly disseminating positive content and opinions on his products and brand. Social networks strongly support the recommendation, a major issue when, according to the figures of the research firm Forrester Research, 61% of European consumers rely on a friend’s opinion about a product or brand and only 8% trust advertising.
Similarly, the timing and frequency of publication affect the reach of messages. For example, Facebook has a peak of traffic between noon and 2 pm, then between 5 pm and 6 pm. Twitter is to be preferred between 1 pm and 4 pm and then between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm. And if the first one post per day is enough to be visible, the ideal tweet frequency increases between one and four times per hour!
A mainly human cost
This time investment requires companies or marketing companies in dubai to use a person dedicated to campaigns on social networks: community manager or specialized agency, each with its own solution. However, it is preferable that everything remains in the same hands. Focusing on social network management on one person ensures the relevance and consistency of communication across different channels and provides more control over the content.
The human being is the main cost of animating your brand on social networks. This low investment makes them easily accessible to small structures that also have a trump card in hand: their manager.
“The image of the entrepreneur is very important in the context of an SME. It is not enough for the structure to be present on social networks, the manager must also have his own profile and manage his community,” says Cecile Robin. This is important because according to the latest annual Brandfog study conducted in the United States, two out of three consumers are more likely to buy a company’s product if its manager is present on social networks.
