We have prepared over 40 brands to position themselves correctly in the digital environment by creating communication strategies and communication plans. For some brands the implementations were made by the social media department within the agency, and for others our agency offered consulting classes or held marketing workshops.
Now that you are reading this article I have a question for you: Is your brand (or the one you work for) present in the online environment?
Regardless of the answer, below you will learn what are the steps to achieve a digital communication strategy for your business.
Why social media?
When we say “social media” we think of a variety of online methods through which you can position yourself and promote so as to get as close as possible to your audience. It is recommended that the term “social media” be included in the business strategy because with the help of a well-defined fingerprint, your brand becomes more recognizable. The online allows you to be always connected with your community and, at the same time, it offers you the possibility to reach other people interested in the niche you work on.
What is social media for and how can it help you?
Social media is and will always be constantly changing. Online means always testing new things, analyzing the way your community reacts and looking in detail at the results obtained. This is the only way you will be perceived as a brand updated with the news. There is no key to success when it comes to the term social media. The know-how offers you the expertise, but there is no generally valid strategy that can be applied on any brand. If a business performs online in a certain direction, this does not ensure the certainty that your brand will have the same success applying the same strategy or directions.
The digital environment can help you increase brand awareness, it can give you a much greater exposure so that you can reach different audiences more easily, you have an advantage when it comes to customer support because you can meet customer needs in a timely manner relatively short and brand confidence increases, you can increase the number of leads depending on the communication goals set and, last but not least, with this environment you can increase the number of conversions, if your strategy focuses on this goal .
What do we look for when creating a social media strategy?
First of all, it is essential to know the brand very well (who it is), to know exactly what it does (field of activity) and to have knowledge related to its history in order to understand how it has positioned itself in the past. find out for a long time in the online environment).
* This paragraph applies to marketers, not to those who own the business and know the brand in detail.
Once we know all this information, it is important to determine how we will position the brand in the digital environment. Whether we aim to create content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or other platforms, we must correctly transpose business objectives into online communication in order to set an optimal tracking framework for analyzing the results obtained to help make new decisions. level of organization and optimization.
What are the stages of achieving a social media strategy?
1. setting relevant KPI`s to be followed throughout the implementation of the strategy starting from the general business objectives.
If we want to increase brand visibility then the goal will be brand awareness, if we want to reach a new audience segment, then communication will focus on delivering appropriate content to the target audience, so that it reacts positively to the information transmitted or if we want to increase the number of sales, then the focus will be on generating traffic to the site to become familiar with the existing content on the site and to make potential conversions.
2. establishing the profile of the consumer (person) to whom the communication will be made.
In the online environment, the audiences are diverse, with different interests and affinities. A well-defined profile from a socio-demographic and psychographic point of view will help the business to address those interested in the brand / product / services offered.
General audiences are recommended for increasing brand awareness and visibility (in a first phase), while audiences segmented by interests and age categories will give you the opportunity to communicate targeted according to established communication directions, in order to increase confidence in brand, to retain the consumer or to convert him into a customer depending on the content delivered.
3. elaboration of communication directions
Communication directions are the basis of digital strategy. They help you set up a communication workflow to choose what and how to deliver content to your audiences. Depending on the nature of the business, the communication directions may vary, but in the following I will point out as an example some directions that can be applied:
– presenting the benefits of the brand / products or services in a friendly or formal manner depending on the tone-of-voice of the brand;
– highlighting the brand differentiators or brand products / services through dedicated content;
– creating an attractive content so that the brand remains in the users’ minds as a good source of content (“Did you know that” type posts, surveys, etc.);
– creating posts that generate engagement (GIF posts, 360 photos, 3D posts, crosswords posts, spot the differences, etc.).
– associating the brand with events from the same industry or with actions that can attract new people in the already formed community;
– creating posts that ask questions open to the community to find out the opinion of users about the brand or services and to find out their curiosities related to the field of activity of the brand.
4. creating a content marketing plan based on communication pillars
Starting from the established directions of communication, in social media it is important to keep a unity in everything you deliver to your audiences. Each direction can be entered in a communication pillar that presents with a constant frequency information on a certain subject. For example, information such as “Did you know that” can be introduced in a series that presents to the public every Friday the curiosities about the brand, services, etc. or if we are talking about a communication pillar in which we aim to promote the people in the company, then the frequency for this direction can be 1 post per month or per week about each employee to humanize the brand and increase confidence in it.
Communication pillars are much more easily recognized among users if they are promoted under the identity of a representative hashtag (eg #PeopleOf .., #InfographicFriday, etc.) or a graphic element (photo frame or certain background colors associated with the direction of communication ) because they will constantly appear in the reader’s eyes and he will immediately interact with that type of content because he has become accustomed to it.
5. allocating a promotion budget for the content made on social platforms
For a correct presence in the online environment, it is indicated to allocate a promotion budget for the content made on social platforms so that it reaches a representative number of people in order to increase the visibility of the brand. Every content created is a good source to attract new people to the community who will later become fans of the brand or consumers of the services provided.
Conclusion:
It is good to take into account that your brand has a dedicated social media marketing services, not just the classic marketing strategy. Once you have followed this work process regarding the digital environment, your brand will gain a professional image in the online environment, and this will give you an advantage in positioning on the market in which you operate.
Digitac 