There’s no doubt that social media is an essential component of all business-to-consumer marketing and communications strategies, however, the big question is: How many channels are enough?
A recent study by Hootsuite found that oversaturating social media with brand content––especially repeated content––across many channels, causes audiences to zone out, skip content, and, worst of all, unfollow. This is not good news for marketing professionals who go to great effort and cost to acquire followers in the first place.
“It all begins with understanding your audience and the spaces they occupy”, said Desirée Gullan, Executive Creative Director of G&G Digital. “Then you can craft value-adding content that speaks to your audiences in the channels they love. Doing so allows you to have a trusted voice on social media, as opposed to bombarding your target audience with generic content everywhere.”
Here are the 5 key aspects to consider when selecting your social media channels:
1. Who uses this channel and what are they using it for?
Is it an important channel for your target personas?
What conversations are going on here?
What content type works best?
2. Will this channel help you achieve your objectives?
Why does it make sense for your business or brand to use this channel?
What goals will you pursue through your activities here?
3. Does the channel align with your content mission?
Will your content be viewed as unique and valuable, or will the community find it intrusive or irrelevant?
Have your competitors established a strong presence?
Could you lead the conversation on this channel for your brand’s positioning?
4. What results do you want to achieve?
What should you be asking followers to do after engaging with our content––share, comment, visit, subscribe or shop?
Is the community likely to take an action?
Do you have the right metrics, monitoring, and KPIs to measure success?
What kinds of content work best on this platform?
Is your content strategy relevant to this audience?
“Talk to your audience, not at them,” Gullan adds. “People trust brands that give back, whether you’re providing valuable information, entertaining, sharing news, or simply providing a safe place where they can be with other people going through similar experiences.”
Tools such as Hootsuite, Agora or Buffer make social media management easier and aggregate your posts over several platforms using real-time stats, however, repetitive posts on multiple platforms run the risk of brand blindness and unsatisfied target audiences wondering why they’re seeing duplicated content.
This leaves marketing professionals with the challenge of not just streamlining social media presence, but also making content that matters. “Quality over quantity is the rule of thumb––take more time strategising and producing relevant content for your channel that connects and adds value to your followers,” concluded Gullan.
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