How to standout amongst the clutter...a question every Marketing Manager and company is, or should be asking themselves.
To start let's first explain what I mean by "clutter". Clutter is the saturation of content, posts, pictures, video, TV commercials, billboard ads, etc., crowding our social media pages, train stations, streets and sidewalks, etc. Just think about all of the posts and ads on your personal Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn page, etc., which may only have a couple hundred people or a couple of thousand (if you're a social butterfly and/or great networker), either way those numbers are unsubstantial when you look at the grand scheme of things. But even still, there is no way to possibly read and click on all the posts. For one, everyone is extremely busy managing their own lives, and for two some of the posts/content is not worth looking into any further, let alone engaging in meaningful conversation.
So what can you do as a Marketing Manager or a company that is dealing with hundreds of thousands or even millions of potential clients/consumers.
Choose your social media platforms wisely. With so many options out there to engage in and communicate your brand, a company/marketing manager must define which platforms will provide the highest ROI and maximize available resources, no matter how limited. A great way to do this would be to access and analyze the direct competitors (particularly the leaders) - see which platforms they are using, chances are the same will work for you, or some combination of. Secondly, the company/marketing manager should determine which platforms they and their team are most comfortable and familiar with using. The last thing you want to do is work with a platform where no one has experience, or where your target market has limited use. If you do some research on major brands and industries you will see, for the most part, they will use the exact same platforms, give or take one or two. For example, the car industry will use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Know your audience. Everyone is enamored with numbers. I have 10,000 followers or 100,000 Facebook likes. That's great, who are these people? How did you get them? Are they turning into customers? Are they sharing and commenting on your posts/content? The point is, you can have all the followers in the world, but if they are not in line with your brand, your message, and/or product/service, you mind as well have zero.
Content is King. Yea, we've all heard this countless times, of course uploading and posting content is a must for your brand to gain awareness, penetrate markets, and in the end bring in revenues. But the question is, what kind of content is going to engage your audience to the point where they want to click on your posts, share, like, engage, and ultimately buy into what your brand is about. This is where it is important to post visually stimulating content (e.g. pictures, videos, etc.), these can be original content (if you can this would be ideal), or even stock photos, free google pictures, a trending YouTube Video, etc., as long as you are clear of copyright infringement any and all of the above will work just fine. Just make sure the content is in-line with the brand, and portrays what the culture is like, what the company appreciates and values, educational, has something to do with the industry and product line, etc.
Engage your audience as much as possible. Some of you have heard of the 80/20 rule in marketing, where 20% of your marketing messages produce 80% of your campaign results, which may very well be true. But I'm here to tell you this rule also applies to the amount of time a Marketing Manager, and their team, should be allocated towards engagement. The more we engage the audience the higher the probability that the campaign will build loyal followers/customers, and ultimately become successful. Now these percentages are by no means set in stone, as a Marketing Manager should constantly be tracking and analyzing results, and should adjust accordingly - maybe try a 70/30 rule, whatever works for you. The point is, social media has made marketing personal, it's almost as if we have gone back in time (so to speak), to a time pre-television, pre-intertnet era, where human interaction was essential for a brand to sell a product/service. Social media has a very human element to it, granted there are some robots trolling Twitter and Facebook; however, for the most part, there is a real human being on the other end. Always try and remember that.
Commit. Ah, the dreaded word for some of us, but yes, you MUST commit to a well-defined integrated marketing strategy. Gaining brand awareness and market penetration is something that takes a lot of time, particularly if you are a new startup or small and growing business. As stated above, the internet and social media is cluttered with content - everywhere we look we are inundated with adverts, business associates, family and friends, heck everyone on LinkedIn has the ability to blog now with a direct, built-in audience. In the web 2.0 world we now live in, everything grows exponentially - meaning once you get a 100 followers, the next 100 will not be as hard, and once you hit a 1000, the next 1000 happens that much quicker, as long as you commit to the marketing plan and strategy. That said the opposite is true as well. If you only commit to the integrated marketing plan/strategy for a short amount of time it is going to be that much harder to build that audience back up - attention spans are extremely short and once you lose or start to lose an audience action must be taken immediately or you risk being forgotten (e.g. JC Penny).
As always, I'd love to hear your comments on this topic, so please leave comments if you desire.
PS - If you are in need of any Business and Marketing consultation for your small to mid-sized business/start-up feel free to shoot me an email at: modernbizstrategy@gmail.com.
Cheers,
ModernManTellsAll
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